Holly Road and early St Albans

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32880, 1 April 1972, Page 12

Holly Road and early St Albans

(By

W. J. A. BRITTENDEN)

The great and encouraging interest shown in the planned move of a provincial period house from 104 Holly Road to the nine-teenth-century township at Ferrymead has been practical as well as sentimental.

This property was situated in one of the most pleasant, quiet and, until 50 years ago, delightfully rural areas within a mile and a half of Cathedral Square. St Albans stretched from Carlton Mill Road through Merivale (Rossail Street being Boundary Road) up to Innes Road, and swept round to roughly Warrington Street, including Knightsdown, centred on Colombo and Edgeware Road intersection, and down Hills Road with the North Belt (Bealey Avenue) as the chord to the segment A 1900 description boasted of the fine and attractive residences “in brick, wood, stone and in divers styles of architecture, from those of the Swiss chateau and the Indian bungalow to that of the two-storeyed English mansion . , . Some of the streets resemble lanes, hedged and prettily fenced, often in rural fashion . . .” Many of the half-chain lanes remain, in whole or in part, but it is a pity that, in the name of efficiency, these are being widened. Sale to Gordon On January 14, 1852, Joseph Northland Cotterill, of Sumner, acquired from the Canterbury Association Rural Section 206, of 50 acres, lying north of the North Belt to approximately Ranfurly Street and west, to the end of Berry Street. On March 20, 1853, he sold 19J acres off the northern portion of this block, together with another five acres at the North BeltSpringfield Road comer, to George Gould. The remaining 25 acres had already been transferred to “Whistling Tom” Ellis who had been in the Herriot and McGilvray party of five men, one woman and a child, which had arrived at Riccarton (probably opposite the site of the present Riccarton Hotel) in April, 1840, and Gustavus “Baron von” Gartner. With no valid claim to the land under the terms of the recently signed Treaty of Waitangi, the party (agents of two Australian land “purchasers”) left, 18 months later after having harvested 15 acres of wheat and a similar area of potatoes. In 1853 Ellis and Gartner were the co-licensees of the Golden Fleece Hotel on the southeast comer of Armagh and Colombo Streets. For a consideration of £5OO, on June 28, 1865, Gould transferred five acres on either side of what is now Holly Road to George Gordon. At this time what were later Springfield and Caledonian roads were merely unnamed and probably unformed accommodation roads for stock movement Gordon retained a section with a two-chain frontage on Springfield Road and a depth of three chains and a half. On the north of this he reserved a half chain lane which in an 1876 plan is “recognised as a road” although no name is given. However, in 1878 it is recorded as Holly Road and may have been known as that at an earlier but undiscovered date. This road ran, at that time, from the bend in Holly Road to Caledonian Road. At least part of the remainder of his five acres was sold off, notably to Dawe, Chainey on the other side of Holly Road, and to Davidson to the west of his own section. Holly fences In a deposited plan dated September 28, 1908, the surveyor, has thoughtfully indicated that on the north boundary and on the south where the BiggWithers were to build about 1902, there were live (presumably holly) fences planted 45 years earlier. If the figures are correct, then the plants were put in during 1863, and therefore, presumably, not planted by Gordon. But if not, then by whom? There are four assumptions or legends about “104”; that George Gordon brought the building with him, that he erected it, that he went to Springfield Road on his arrival in 1855, and that, later, the building was moved back from a site nearer Springfield Road. All of these things are possible, especially if we assume that Gordon rented the property from Gould from 1855 to his purchase in 1865. But if he built the house why did he pay £5OO for the land? If he went there in 1865, who had planted the holly, and why, and where did he keep his prefabricated home for 10 years? Indeed, was it prefabricated? Mr A. D. Harman remembers being told by his father that it was built of heart white pine—hence its resistance to borer. An investigation to be made by experts will determine the origin of the timber. Certainly the floor was—and is—of Baltic pine, still in excellent condition, but this was not uncommon. Assembly marks may also be found when the interior is stripped. As for the movement, Mr

Harman again remembers, as a small boy, playing on the spacious front lawn of the Gordon house before the Tinney home was built in front and even allowing for the spatial exaggeration of a youngster’s impressions, it is impossible for anybody to consider 17 feet as “spacious.” In addition, several women with long memories have told me of the “big drive.” What may have been shifted were the stables and gig house which are remembereed as being almost on Holly Road. A deed dated June 28 which refers to “a messuage or dwelling house and all other buildings and erections,” and a mortgage agreement dated June 30, lead me to believe that the Gordons took over a house and outbuildings erected two or three years previously. Inquiries being made in Auckland may solve this little puzzle.

First town clerk George Gordon, born in County Wicklow in 1823, was persuaded to come to New Zealand in late 1854 or early 1855 by his wife Katherine’s brother-in-law. Richard J. Strachan Harman, born in Dublin but educated at Rugby, where he was a friend of one of the young Lyttelton’s, had arrived in the Sir George Seymour to act as purchasing agent for Lord Lyttelton. On a visit to Ireland in 1854 to marry Miss Emma de Renzy, he had persuaded his sister-in-law and her husband, George Gordon, to come to Christchurch. This they did, probably early in 1855, and George Gordon became the first Town Clerk to the Christchurch Council, a post he held until his death in November, 1875. Tributes to the ability and dedication he showed in his official capacity and the generosity with which he gave time to charitable associations (usually as secretary or treasurer) were freely paid. Rather late, the council discovered that he had been under-paid and carried a vote to present to his widow a sum equal to a month’s salary for every year he had served the city. This produced at least one objector, but it was pointed out that when Councillors Bishop and Luck were preparing a schedule of municipal regulations, he worked with them from 5 pjn. to 11 p.m. on 100 nights without ever mentioning overtime. His starting salary was £lBO p.a., which was raised to £350 in January, 1865, and reduced to £250 in November, 1866. A citizens’ testimonial fund had reached £287 a month after his death. Tinney family Mrs Gordon lived on in what she called “Caragh,” though no-one to whom I have spoken can remember this house name. With her for much of the time was her son, Tom, well-known as superintendent of St Matthew’s Sunday School, and her daughter, Emma Jane, until her death in 1908. Emma was a Canterbury champion tennis player. The estate was then sold, George Tinney, foreman at Goss’s timber works (and later a builder), purchasing the front portion, in which, apparently, he built “110” facing Holly Road, and his wife, Adeline,

the remainder of the Gordon block. On the death of Mr Tinney in 1924, No. 110 came to mother and daughter until Mrs Tinney’s death in 1942, when the whole property came to Philippa Tinney until her death in 1967. It is not possible to obtain a complete list of tenants of the old house but in 1910 one, McKeich, a miner, was in occupation while in 1916 Miss Emmy Norris was there, and in 1920 Mrs Henry Eugene Clibborn. Notable residents Springfield and Holly roads have always had more than their quota of interesting people. Close to the intersection of these two roads lived C. E. Bevan-Brown, described as the “Rector of the High School", whose house burned down in 1908 after he had left it. The flames blistered the paintwork in the BiggWithers’ home across the road. E. G. Wright, M.H.R., was an engineer and contractor who took part in the “battle of the (railway) gauges”; Stanley Lloyd builder and B. E. H. Whitcombe, publisher and the Reynolds were all in the south-east comer. J. C. Maddison, architect, George Thornton, C.E., Charles M. Croxton, manager of the South British Insurance Company and the Rev. C. R. Blakiston, lived in the north-east comer. On the north-west comer was for many years the William Hill Dawe family, with the Rev. John Aldred as a neighbour. He was a part-time farmer, growing crops of wheat. It has been suggested that he may have built the Holderness home in Ranfurly Street. For a few years in the 1890’s Menzies Gibb was a neighbour in the west of “104”. Another well-known artist, living in Springfield Road north was W. A. Bowring, whose sketches of the famous and near-famous graced the pages of the “Weekly Press” for several years. Bus owner Next to the Dawes in Holly Road is the quaint twostoreyed house of Edward H. Chainey which remained in the family until 1950. For many years Charles Edward Salter lived near the comer of Papanui and Holly roads. Newspapers were represented by Phineas Selig, manager of the Christchurch Press Company and the outstanding E. C. Huie who was to make his name on the “Sun”. Also at that end were George Slater, the surveyor, and Joseph of “Ilex”. Does anyone know if Ilex still stands? Others whose names appear in the records are Leicester Webb and H. P. MurrayAynsley. At the top end of Springfield Road, at the comer of St Albans Road, was Carter who owned and ran the bus service to Springfield and St Albans While A. W. Buxton, whose gardens were in St Martins, lived north of Ranfurly Street and ran a nursery (garden) at home. Lower down Springfield Road, on the comer of Clare Road, was the store and Post Office run by Miss Beer McGoveme for many years, while on the comer of Eversleigh Street was the home of J. G. Collins, the architect. At the end of the street were the homes of the Gould family and W. Reece. Printing works The major industry in what was so predominantly a residential and farming district was the printing works of James Thomas Smith, who came out in 1860 to become a reader for the “Lyttelton Times” but began as a printer at J. T. Smith and Company in Springfield Road, just south of Holly Road, in 1872. His initiative was shown by his having the first business telephone (if not the first telephone in Christchurch) linking his works in St Albans with his office in Hereford Street. He was also the first printer in the city to power his plant by gas. In 1890 as Smith, Anthony and Sellars, the firm became a limited liability company, moved into Plymouth Lane in 1892 and, in 1926, was taken over by Coulls, Somerville, Wilkie, Ltd. Smith and Anthony employed several Lovell-Smiths and made a name for themselves by their coloured lithographic maps. Many of the St Albans homes had, and have, delightful shrubberies and gardens but the little native bush, on the Springfield frontage of “110,” a pockethandkerchief affair of no more than 150 square yards which once boasted its own little stream and retains boxedged paths and a roofed garden seat is exceptional. No wonder it was a joy to children. Whether it was planted by the Gordons or the Tinneys, or someone else, this inspired gardener served generations of youngsters well. It is a pity it has to go. [ln writing this article, I have had delightful and helpful chats with Mesdames Alice Newton, Evelyn Curie, Beryl Lonsdale, Elsie Haggitt, Misses Adela Innes, Dorothy Thomson and Mr Ken McAnergney. I thank them.—W.J.A.B.]