EARLY NEW BRIGHTON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16750, 3 June 1922, Page 9

EARLY NEW BRIGHTON.

ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS, THE SHORTAGE OF FIREWOOD. The following additional facts haring a bearing on the early history of New Brighton, which have been obtained from Mr John W. BisseUs notes, should bo of interest: — In the early fifties there were practically no trees whatever in Christchurch. In those days firewood was very scarce and manuka scrub, tun, bush and dried manure formed tho principal fuel. With tho depletion of the immediate manuka scrub, the difficulties of obtaining firewood increased and excursions in the direction, and to the sea beach had to be resorted to and were accomplished in the following manner at Dallington :—A «ledge with wooden runners was taken across the river on a punt, and one or two favourite bullocks were forced to swim across the river, yoked up to the sledge and walked or trotted across the sand-hills towards the beach. One of the party in the meanwhile would take the punt down the river to the adopted landing place of the present Richmond Terrace. There the sledge employed by the bullock brought the driftwood from the beach or river and scrub on the way and punted up the river home. passage or way to the beach by the north or Christchurch side of the river waa practically impossible, owing to the five or six creeks which ran into the river. This part of the district was then called the swamp and extended from the present Barkers Road (,&aioining Racecourse Road), to Bur wood, and was then owned by Mr R. MMorton of the Hills. He later sold the land to Mr Corson, who again in later years sold it to Mr W H. Travers. It is also inter© st-ng to recall the fir*t wedding hold in Avonside Church, when Miss Dudley, a daughter of Mr John Dudley, the owner of Dallington. drove t-o the church in a bullock dray, to be married to Major Biggs. The church at that period was built with clay walls. Some years later., in 1880, Major Biggs and his wife and two children were massacred in the Maori rising in To vertv Bay. THE TIDAL WAVE. In the year 1863. great excitement was caused when the news came up to Christchurch that the »sea had left Lyttelton Bay and that the people were collecting the stranded fish left high and dry on the harbour l>ottom, also that along the coast the sea had withdrawn fully a mile out. Premonitions of danger prevailed and precautions were taken before the seismic or great tidal wave swept along the coast and re-occupied the harbour with great violence- This cause was attributed later to the great earthquake that shook Peru and Ilicu a dor, causing a. loss of 25,000 lire®. Tho tidal wav© was attributed to a subsidence or upheaval in the bed of the ocean. The same year also Raw the great flood, of th© Waimakariri, when the overflowing waters flowed across the intervening area from Belfast down into Christchurch, over tho present position of Queen Victoria Statue. Hellen Goven paddock, opposite the brewery, over the Dalingbon country, and at Cowl is haw’s Corner, swept three feet over the road and inundated the surrounding country. At the time when the earlier sections fronting the sea at New Brighton were sold by the Government, Mr Wyn-Williams, a moml*er of the Provincial Council, brought forward and succeeded in carrying a. resolution:— ‘ ‘ That where the land along the sea beach is unsold, the reserve should be five chains wide?" Tho result is that a public esplanade reserve of live chains wide extends from Victoria Street, forty chains south of the hotel, along th© beach to near the mouth of the estuary’ for a distance of about 31 miles and northerly, from a point 120 chains north of the hotel, towards the Vaimaka riri.