TAMING THE AVON

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34089, 28 February 1976, Page 12

TAMING THE AVON

Man has twice substantially altered the course of part of the. Avon River. One change was at Kerrs Reach to make a straight course for rowers in the 1950 Centennial Games. The other diversion was nearer the Estuary and was made at a much earlier date. RICHARD GREENAWAY describes the circumstances of the Withell’s Island cut.

In the 1850 s a number of ships came up the Avon to the “Bricks” Wharf, now the site of the Barbadoes Street Bridge. But a sandbar and shoals in the lower reaches of the waterway made navigation very’ difficult.

Thus representations were made to the Provincial Government which, tn 1858, asked its engineer, Edward Dobson (father of. the more famous Sir Arthur) to report on ’he matter.

Dobson’s report stated that it would be pointless to remove the shoals as they rested on loose fine

sand: new shoals would form as soon as the existing ones were removed. Nor could the bar of sand, which stretched across the river from bank to bank, be taken out. But it could be avoided through the cutting of a new channel.

As a result of Dobson’s recommendations, two cuts were made, one 32 and the other 10 chains in length. Thus was the so-called Withell’s Island formed. Charles Withell was a man who eventually farmed the area. The contractors for the cuts, Messrs. McGrath and Brady, do not at times appear to have found their task very rewarding. On one occasion high tides caused the work to be suspended, and the employers had to pay 20 men while their

labour could not be used

The navvies seem to have had no regrets about working so near the seaside.

Wages were good; and, in off-duty hours, the men were able to collect and sell the whalebones and timber which littered New Brighton beach, at that time a place which attracted few holiday makers.

The whalebones could be sold to make bowers and other decorations in Christchurch residences. The timber, which was likewise sold, had been washed down from the mills which were working farther north along the coast.

But those who would make the waterway a major artery of trade were doomed to disappointment. The funda-

mental problem of an insufficient depth of water meant that vessels which nosed their way upstream had always to do so in a slow, cautious manner.

But if the vision of the pioneers was without substance, their enterprise was to have an impact on the recreation and geography of the future New Brighton settlement.

As the result of the cutting of a new channel, boating people were to have a good clear run down from where the Seaview Road Bridge was to be built; and, as the original channel was not filled in for many years, the area between the old and the new watercourses became an island.

Today Withell’s Island is the Christchurch City council property to the south and east of the New Brighton Power Boat Club Hall. The old course of the Avon, of which no

evidence now remains, lies just to the north, south and east of this land. From the ’B6os to the turn of the century it was fringed with willows and covered with flax, this latter plant providing sanctuary for wild ducks and other birds, they in turn providing good shooting. Some spoke of the old river bed as excellen. for whitebaiting and froghunting; and, at the turn of the century, part of the watercourse was used as swimming baths by the New Brighton residents. But one lad was drowned, and people took to using the stream as a rubbish dump, thus creating a health hazard. The New Brighton Borough Council decided that something must be done.

One councillor urged the purchase of the island

as a borough recreation ground, and argued that the stream should be kept open and beautified. But his ideas were not accepted. A horse tramway was established between the lower end of Oram Avenue and the river bed. Hug sandhills which had accumulated at Oram Avenue were then carted to the stream and used to fill it in.

The filling in of the original bed of the Avon River occurred in 1908. In 1930 Withell’s trustees sold the property to the New Brighton Borough Council; and, with amalgamation in 1941, Witheirs Island became the property of the Christchurch City Council. Various plans to use it have come to nothing until, at last, a scheme for the erecting of pensioners’ cottages has prospered.