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Richmond History Group

The Richmond History Group is based at Avebury House. The group maintains a collection of books, photographs and other memorabilia illustrating and recording the history of Avebury House and the development of the surrounding suburb of Richmond. We seek to expand the collection and have begun a project to digitise items from the collection and make them available online. This is a work-in-progress and we will be adding items to this site from now on.

If you have photographs or other material concerning Richmond’s past, we would love to hear from you. Perhaps you would like to donate items to the collection, or allow us to view the material and if suitable, borrow items for recording and adding to our digital archive. We would of course return the items to you in the same condition as we received them.

If you would like to learn more about the group, or become involved, please contact Andrea at 381-6615.

Richmond School class photo: 1947, Std 4

5/2/2024

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Recently Mike Bunce contacted us. Mike had come across an old Richmond School class photo (above). Mike’s mother, Irene Dawn Keats (1936–2004, known as Dawn) is in the photo, 2nd row from back, 3rd pupil from the right. Otherwise, we don’t know any names of the class or the teachers.
You never know...somebody may be able to help us identify other people in the photo: Richmond School, 1947, Standard 4. If so, please get in touch ([email protected]).
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Historical Photos of the Garden Avebury House

13/10/2023

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In 2022 we were very fortunate to have a set of Flesher family material donated to our collection at Avebury House. The material, documents and photographs, was donated by Geoff Taggart of Pleasant Point, South Canterbury and we are grateful to Michael Williams who helped bring the donation about.

The material consists of several boxes of items, including an 11-page album of photos of the garden at Avebury, probably taken in the 1920s. I have made copies of the album pages and these are posted below.

Some of the photos have been included in the Nottingham Report (see previous post), which has helped us date the images to around 1920. The photos have been glued into the album and are showing some discolouration. The eleven pages could well be a fragment of a larger album — the pages are bound together but there is no cover. Nor are there any captions or other information accompanying the photos.
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Still the photos are well worth a look and show us a glimpse of garden design fashion in 1920s Christchurch. Our thanks to Mr Taggart for his wonderful donation.

David Hollander
Richmond History Group

Click on an image to see a larger version. ​
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Avebury Park Property Report

13/10/2023

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A 2-page sample from the report: a plant list of one of the garden beds. left, and a mixture of photos of the garden, both current with the report, and historical. Where possible I have replaced poor photocopies of the old photos with better quality scans.
In the Richmond History Group collection at Avebury House is a poor-quality photocopy of a detailed horticultural assessment of the grounds at Avebury. The undated report was compiled by Bede Nottingham of the Christchurch City Council and identifies individual garden borders and lists the plants in them. Unfortunately, the City Council have been unable to supply a better copy of the report, or indeed, any other information about the document — not even the year it was produced!?

The 26-page report includes 11 pages of photographs; some apparently taken at the time the report was prepared, and some being historical images of the garden — mostly taken around 1920 — when the house was still the Flesher family home. But sadly, the images have not come through the photocopy process at all well.

In the document below I have tidied up the photocopied text as best I can, but many of the images are in their photocopied state: just a batch of black blobs on white paper…a shame. However, I have been able to find better photographic copies of fourteen of the historical images in our collection, and I have super-imposed these images in the report, replacing the photocopy versions.

The report may be from the late 1990s when the City Council assumed management of Avebury House after the Youth Hostel Association ended their occupancy of the property. Or, perhaps some time earlier — who knows? Nevertheless, the document is a fascinating read for anyone interested either in the history of Avebury, or indeed in garden history in general. The historical images show how much the garden has changed over the years, and the exact identification of the planting makes the report a real snapshot of the garden at one point in its development…we just don’t know when that point was!?

If anyone can shed any more light on the report, or indeed, offer any more information about Avebury House or its garden, we would love to hear from you. Please contact Avebury House  ([email protected]).

David Hollander
Richmond History Group

avebury_park-nottingham_report-edited_version.pdf
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The Hickling Family in Richmond

14/8/2023

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John Hickling, has recently loaned us a family photo album which includes pictures of the family’s tomato-growing business in Richmond, between River Road & Dudley Creek. Few of the photos have dates recorded, but seem to be taken mostly before 1950. 
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About 1925, John’s grandfather, William Hickling (1886–1967) bought two acres of land in North Richmond, west of Dudley Creek near its confluence with the Avon River. The purchase must have seemed a good deal to him, because the previous year he had owned an acre of land in Papanui, which included a house and four glasshouses growing tomatoes, along with other horticultural infrastructure.
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The Hickling family would live at the Richmond property for the next 50 years. As these photos show, the business the family developed here became a considerable enterprise. When William retired in the 1950s, his son Arthur (1920–2000) took over the business, in partnership with his sisters and their husbands. Later, when North Island tomato growers began flooding South Island markets with cheaper tomatoes grown outdoors, the family switched to growing carnations. Arthur sold the property in the mid-1970s and went on to sell real estate with Drewery’s Estate Agency in Christchurch.
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The aerial photo, above, taken in 1961, shows the Hickling property outlined in white, and how it fitted into the surrounding neighbourhood between Dudley Creek and the Avon River.
​William Hickling and his wife Agnes were married in Birmingham, England in March, 1909. They must have emigrated to New Zealand soon after, as their first child, Ivy Lillian, was born in New Zealand in 1910. The couple would have two more children: Elsie, b 1913 and Arthur, b 1920. From 1925, the family lived at 389 River Road. William established the property, building glasshouses for growing tomatoes. 
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Something of a family portrait. William Hickling and his wife, Agnes, centre. On the left is their younger daughter, Elsie, and at right, her sister Lillian. The photo was probably taken by Arthur.
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Smoko: William, 3rd from left, and Arthur 4th from left.
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This picture was probably taken after the big snow, August 1945.
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Building the chimney stack for the No.1 boiler. The boiler burned coal or slack (fine coal).
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The packing shed, where tomatoes were sorted and packed for shipping all over the South Island.
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Always something to do…William, left, and Arthur. The vehicle is a Hudson Terraplane car, highly modified for use as a tip truck!?
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The main paddock, north of the main glasshouse. Here the family grew a range of produce: lilies, vegetables, berries and blackcurrants.

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The main glasshouse (No 1 & 2), ready for planting out. Taken in the days before the family installed raised beds, which made this work much easier on the back!?
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A Burrel traction engine served as a boiler to sterilise the soil in the glasshouses. On occasion, the engine served to pull vehicles out of Dudley Creek.
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Sterilising the soils, No. 1 glasshouse. The pipes were pushed into the beds (raised by this time!) and steam was pumped through the soil.
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Repairs after a hail storm. Handwritten caption on reverse reads: “In front: C. McLean, W. Hickling, C. Carson. Up ladder, Gef [sic]. Arthur on top, head cut off. “
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Another large tomato crop underway.
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Mrs Murphy and the Reminiscence Man

28/7/2023

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Who was the Reminiscence Man? In the 1920s, over 50 articles appeared in The Star newspaper under the byline, The Reminiscence Man. The items were all interviews with old residents who talked about their memories of life in Christchurch in the early days of European settlement. One of these pieces was an interview with Mrs Ellen Murphy, who had been one of the early residents of Richmond — before it was called Richmond!? The article was included in the 5 November, 1927 issue of The Star.
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In the document below I have included a transcript of the Star article, with some notes and maps to expand on some points and illustrate others. And I have included information about The Reminiscence Man.

David Hollander
Richmond History Group
mrs_murphy___the_reminiscence_man_.pdf
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Shirley School Golden Jubilee Booklet, 1966

24/7/2023

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I have been on the lookout for a copy of the Shirley School 50th Jubilee Booklet for some time, but they are hard to come by. Thanks are due to John Hickling, who has loaned us his copy of the booklet for scanning and adding to our website — a PDF version is available for reading/downloading below.
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The booklet was published to accompany the school’s jubilee celebrations held in early 1966, and includes a brief account of the school’s history since opening in 1916, on its site on the south side of Shirley Road, between Chancellor and Slater streets — opposite the site of today’s Shirley Primary School.

The opening of a new school on this site in 1916 is evidence of a growing population in north Richmond and surrounding areas; in that first year the school roll was over 700!? The school moved from the old site to a larger space on the north side of Shirley Road, probably in the 1970s — does anyone know the exact year? The old brick school building became a community centre and the grounds a local park, until the Canterbury earthquakes, which destroyed the old building. The park is still a local gem and includes several fine mature trees. The CCC has plans to build a new community centre on the site in the future.

It’s good to be able to make this publication readily available. If anyone has photos or other information about the old Shirley School, we would love to hear from you — please contact Avebury House.

David Hollander
July 2023



shirley_school-50th_jubilee-1966.pdf
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A House with a Story — Avebury House, by Jan Moody (2003)

21/4/2023

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Our thanks go out to Jan Moody, who has given us permission to include her book about Avebury House on our website. A link to a PDF version of the book is available below.

Jan was involved with Avebury House in the early days,from 2002, when the CCC converted the house to a community centre, to be managed by the Avebury House Community Trust.

Jan was also studying history at UC at the time, so it was not surprising that she researched the history of the house, along with the Flesher family and their years living at Avebury. She collated  the results of her research into a 14-page booklet which was published by the AHCT in 2003. Unfortunately, only a small print run was produced and today copies are hard to come by.

So it is great that after 20 years that we can make this definitive history of Avebury House more widely available...enjoy.

avebury_house_booklet-jan_moody.pdf
File Size: 6823 kb
File Type: pdf
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Richmond School Honours Board

12/10/2022

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When Richmond School closed at the end of 2013, several of the school’s taonga were moved to Avebury House for safe-keeping. These items included the school’s honour board, along with the WW1 Roll of Honour and WW2 memorial plaque.

The document below tells the story of the Richmond School honour board and records the names of more than 100 of the school’s pupils who won scholarships or achieved other academic distinction at the school. My original idea was to include biographical information about these people, but this has turned out to be a longer-term project, so I have decided to post this document as a first step in telling the honour board’s story.
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David Hollander
Richmond History Group
October 2022


richmond_school_honours_board.pdf
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File Type: pdf
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Two Richmond School Class Photos

17/11/2021

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These two photos have been supplied by Raymond Lew who is present in both. Ray won Dux for the school in 1954 — the last year the Dux was awarded at Richmond. Ray has done well to remember most of the names, but there are a few gaps. If anyone can provide any of the missing names, we would love to hear from you.
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Richmond School Standard 3, 1953
Names, left to right, from the back row.
Back Row: Ross Lloyd, Raymond Lew, Terry Corbett, Brent ?, Bevan Graham.
Second Row: Miss Anning, Teacher, Neil Purtle, Graham Leslie, Robert Craw, Ivor Jones, Peter Drewery, Robin Barnes, John Davis, Graeme Thomson.
Third Row: Larry Taylor, Robert McGregor, Peter Judkins, Bruce Finlay, John Hunter, Brian McLeary, Garry Taylor, Geof LeCren, Graeme Donaldson.
Front Row: Laurence O’Neil, Ann Colville, Lorraine MacDonald, Joan Shaw, ? Evans, Paula ?, Marie Castile, Shona MacDonald, John Ayres.
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Richmond School Standard 4, 1954
Names, left to right, from the back row.
Back Row: John Corbett, David Merritt, John Bryant, Trevor Lightfoot, Bill Hastie, David Watt, Neil Purtle, Ross Lloyd.
Second Row: Darryl Wilde Ivor Jones, John Keatley, Robert McGregor, John Hunter, Brian McLeary,Peter Drewery, Robert Craw, Geoff LeCren.
Third Row: Fred Markham, Teacher, Ann Colville, Janice Inwood, Judith Anderson, (?), Judith Carberry, Janice ?, (?), Shirley Welsh, Larraine Boyd, Student Teacher — name unknown.
Fourth Row: (?), ? Morgan, (?), Lorraine Macdonald, Marie Castell, Heather McLean, (?), (?), (?).
Front Row: (?), (?), John Davis, (?), Raymond Lew, John Ayres, (?), Bevan Graham.
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Hand-drawn Map of Richmond in 1890

20/10/2021

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Don'tcha just love old maps? And this one's a beauty — a hand-drawn map of Richmond in 1890. The map was prepared to accompany a report on Richmond for the Christchurch City Council, after Richmond people had successfully petitioned to join the city. The map is included in the CCC minutes for 7 July 1890.

At this time Richmond included only the area south of North Avon Road. The street layout is quite recognisable today, although some of the names have changed. (A document explaining the names of Richmond streets is available elsewhere on this website: 
www.aveburyhouse.co.nz/richmond-history-group/richmond-street-names).
​On the map, the waterway that caused the curves in London St is clearly marked. A small part of this waterway is still visible above-ground on Gowerton Place, behind the New World supermarket. The rest of the creek has long since been piped underground.
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Several other old maps of Richmond and surrounding areas are on display in the Richmond Room at Avebury House.
ccc_richmond_map-1890_a4.jpg
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    • Past Avebury Events >
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      • Matariki 2019
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