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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 Roll of Honour — The Dead

11/3/2020

2 Comments

 
For some time, members of the Richmond History group have been researching the people whose names appear on the Richmond School Roll of Honour, which is now housed at Avebury House. We have recently completed a document that tells the stories of Richmond men who perished during the First World War.

The 60-page document, available via the link below, includes some background about the honour roll as well as detailed information about 46 people we have identified as having died in the conflict. Of these, only two are buried in Christchurch, all the rest are buried or memorialised overseas, many thousands of miles from home.

This may help explain why there are so many memorials commemorating the war throughout New Zealand; apart from the many official war memorials around the country, there are hundreds of these honour rolls that record the names of service men and women connected with schools, workplaces, churches and a wide range of other groups and organisations. These local memorials may have served as a focus, particularly for people who had lost friends and relatives, when there was little or no hope of ever visiting their graves.
the_richmond_school_roll_of_honour-the_dead.pdf
File Size: 6659 kb
File Type: pdf
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Heritage New Zealand Report: Avebury House, 2019

3/9/2019

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Some years ago, it was proposed to have Avebury House registered as a historic place. The Canterbury earthquakes and their aftermath caused some delay, but the process has now been completed and Avebury House has recently been classed as a Category 2 historic place (#9075) by Heritage New Zealand. 

The report below was prepared by Robyn Burgess of Heritage New Zealand as part of their investigations. While there are some overlaps with the two CCC Avebury House documents posted on this site recently, this report offers a different perspective and brings the official record of Avebury up-to-date.
​
List Entry Type: Historic Place Category 2
List Number: 9075
Date Entered: 16th May 2019
Date of Effect: 5th June 2019
avebury_house_report_final.pdf
File Size: 3690 kb
File Type: pdf
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Avebury Park Historical Investigation & Assessment, 2010

17/8/2019

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Hubert Flesher in the grounds of Avebury House c.1905. 
Photo from Richmond History Group collection, Avebury House.
​​This 21-page document was prepared by Louise Beaumont in 2010 for the Christchurch City Council, and outlines the history and development of the what were once the grounds of Avebury House, now Avebury Park. The report nicely complements the 2000 report on the house itself (available below on this site) and includes several new historical photos of the house and grounds, as well as a detailed look at the landscape elements of the park.
The report’s date, August 2010, makes it a poignant reminder of how much things can change in a short time. Some of the photos show nearby buildings that are now gone. This is another precious document for anyone interested in the story of Avebury House & Park.
avebury_park_historical_investigation.pdf
File Size: 3485 kb
File Type: pdf
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Richmond School Roll of Honour

24/10/2018

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In April we posted an entry on this page about the Richmond School Roll of Honour. That article posed some questions about the board. After some further research we now have a better idea of board's history. The 10-page document below summarises these findings and tells the story of the Roll of Honour as we know it so far. 

Following the closure of Richmond School at the end of 2013, the Roll of Honour was moved to Avebury House, along with the school's academic honours board and a smaller WW2 memorial. All three items are available for viewing in the Gordon Prince room, downstairs at Avebury House.

If anyone has more information to share about the board or any of the 325 people commemorated there, please get in touch at Avebury House.

David Hollander
richmond_school_roll_of_honour_2019.pdf
File Size: 4369 kb
File Type: pdf
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WW1 Honours Board

19/4/2018

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When Richmond School closed in 2013, three honours boards were donated to Avebury House for safe-keeping. The school had been a central part of the Richmond community for over 100 years. Originally the school was located in Stanmore Road, on the site that is now Richmond Green. The school outgrew that site and in 1925 moved to a new location on what was then Cumberland St (now Pavitt St).

Like many communities around the world, Richmond saw many of its young men leave to fight in WW1. The names of those servicemen (and one woman) who had a connection with Richmond School are recorded on this honours board, which is now housed in the Gordon Prince Room at Avebury House. The story of the sole woman, Jessie Maddison, is told briefly in Andrea Grieve’s article for the April 2018 Richmond Community News: (www.aveburyhouse.co.nz/uploads/4/7/2/0/47203855/rcn_118-april-2018.pdf).
         
The wooden board measures 1560 mm wide & 1955 mm high. There are 325 names recorded in five columns. Forty-seven names have a silver star beside them, which indicates the person died while on service. A small metal plaque (116 x 71 mm), attached at the top centre, reads "Presented by Pupils and Friends, 16-2-1918".

It's interesting that the board was presented in Feb 1918, when the war was still far from over. Perhaps it was the empty board itself that was donated at that date, and the names were added later.

The board itself is terse; it doesn’t state specifically that these are WW1 servicemen. Was there another element to the memorial in its previous location? And the names appear to be in no particular order; there are several people sharing a surname, but they aren't grouped together.

There are not many other WW1 memorials in Richmond; there is a memorial stone in the grounds of the Richmond Working Men’s Club, commemorating club members who were killed in the world wars. The nearest conventional memorial is the obelisk outside the Burwood School site on the corner of New Brighton Rd and Lake Terrace Rd along with the memorial gates to Wilding Park in Woodham Rd.
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Historical References in the RCN

4/4/2018

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The Richmond Community News was first published in later 2002. One of the features of the newsletter in the years before the earthquakes was the high number of local history articles, especially a series of items about older houses in the area.

Richmond is unusual amongst older Christchurch suburbs in that very little has been written, and even less published about the history of the area, so these articles represent a treasure trove for people interested in the development of the area.

The back catalogue of the Richmond Community News is now available online (www.aveburyhouse.co.nz/newsletter.html). The link below leads to an index of the history-related articles in the issues between 2003–2011. This 9-page document may help people find a particular article more quickly than reading through all the back issues. The index is simply a chronological list starting with issue #2 (February 2003), giving the title and page number of any history-related articles, up until issue #86 (February 2011).
historical_references_in_richmond_news_2003-11.pdf
File Size: 1437 kb
File Type: pdf
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Flesher Family Photos

12/1/2018

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In our archives is a photograph album consisting of 24 pages of B&W photos, plus front and rear covers. The photographs show the Flesher family and their home at Avebury in 1909–11, after the 1907 renovations overseen by James Glanville, the original architect. There are two good exterior views of Avebury House and an interior view of the drawing room on the ground floor. There is a photo of the tennis court to the south of the house (where the paddling pool is now) and several views of the garden. Several of the photos show social occasions at Avebury, while others show the Flesher children; Hubert and Beryl, sometimes along with other children. Apart from the valuable records of Avebury and its surroundings, the photos give an interesting insight into the lives of a wealthy family in Edwardian Christchurch.

You can download the whole album below:

flesher_family_photo_album-c1910.pdf
File Size: 11063 kb
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  • Home
  • About
    • Board of Trustees
    • Vision and Mission
    • Richmond Community Garden
  • History
    • Avebury House History
    • Richmond History Group
  • Room Hire
    • Rooms
    • Rates
    • Booking
  • What's On
    • Classes and Groups
    • Past Avebury Events >
      • Matariki in the Zone 2021
      • Avebury Gala 2021
      • Matariki in the Zone 2020
      • Avebury Night Market 2019
      • Teddy Bears Picnic 2019
      • Matariki 2019
      • Avebury Gala 2019
      • Wedding Open Day 2018
      • Avebury Night Market 2018
      • Matariki in the Zone 2018
      • Dementia Walk 2018
      • Teddy Bears Picnic 2017
      • Avebury Gala 2017
  • Newsletter
  • Contact