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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.

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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Businesses of the Stanmore Road North End — a Potted History

2/4/2019

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The photo above shows the old shops on the western side of Stanmore Rd near the intersection with North Avon Rd in the late 1970s. These buildings were demolished soon after to make way for the construction of Richmond Village.

The four-page document below contains transcriptions of two letters written by Roy Burn, proprietor of the North Avon Shoe Store Ltd, 333 Stanmore Rd. Pages 1 & 2 give the text of a hand-written document prepared in 1980. Roy appended a note at the end: “1980 on the opening of the new Richmond Village”. The document provides a potted history of many businesses in the commercial area at the north end of Stanmore Rd, over many years of 20th century. It may help readers locate some of the businesses mentioned in the document, to refer to the 1940 Stanmore Rd map prepared by Noeline Hansen and Shona Ward — see the item “Stanmore Road, Richmond — 1940” below on this page.

On p3 is another letter from Roy Burn about the same time, when the new Richmond Village opened at the corner of Stanmore & North Avon Rds. This letter outlines in more detail the story of the shoe repair business at 327 Stanmore Rd, taken over by Roy Burn’s father, Albert, in 1928 and how this developed into the shoe retail business at 333 Stanmore. This letter and short introduction were printed in the August 2006 issue of the Richmond Community News (Issue 39).

The final page includes a map graphic advertising the North Avon shopping centre and its mix of businesses. This is dated 1972 in a handwritten note on the reverse.

The original documents are housed in the Richmond Room at Avebury house, along with much other material covering the history of the Richmond area. The document was transcribed by David Hollander, July 2018. The transcription has been edited lightly; correcting spelling and punctuation, but otherwise leaving the document as it was written.
businesses_of_the_stanmore_road_north_end-a_potted_history.pdf
File Size: 792 kb
File Type: pdf
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Gerrie's Fruiterer & Confectioner 1927

15/8/2018

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These two photographs are part of the local history collection at Avebury House. They show two views, exterior and interior, of Gerrie's Fruiterer & Confectioner on Stanmore Rd. The typed note accompanying these photographs states, “323 Stanmore Rd, 1927”, but Stones Directory gives the address as 325 Stanmore Rd, where George Gerrie had a confectioner’s shop in 1927.

The PDF document includes some more information about the business and the building on the south corner of Stanmore Rd and Avalon St.
gerrie_fruiterers.pdf
File Size: 2815 kb
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Stanmore Road, Richmond — 1940

16/7/2018

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This great piece of work, labelled “Richmond Village”, shows the layout of sections along the north end of Stanmore Road c.1940. North is at the right. The stretch of Stanmore Road runs from the corner of Draper St and Swanns Rd to its northern end at the intersection with North Avon Rd. The data was researched by Noeline Hansen and Shona Ward who were very active in the Richmond History Group based at Avebury House in the years before the earthquakes. The map was drawn by Ken Washington. The original document is large: 2500 x 460 mm and is on display in the Richmond Room, upstairs at Avebury House, 9 Eveleyn Couzins Ave.

On the map, residences are coloured pink and commercial properties are blue. Utilities are indicated in yellow. Where the residential occupiers (not necessarily the owners) of the properties have been identified, their names and occupation, if known, have been shown. Businesses show the name of the owner and the type of enterprise. The map makes for fascinating reading. As late as 1940 there are two blacksmiths in this one stretch of Stanmore Rd.

There is a post office marked at 323 Stanmore Rd. This building had previously been occupied by a fruiterer business — there are two photos of this shop dated 1927 in the history group collection at Avebury House. A section is shown as having been set aside for the construction of a post office on the eastern corner of Stanmore and North Avon Rds, but this was never built.

Bruce St used to connect Stanmore Rd and Pavitt St. The roadway still exists as a driveway immediately south of the St. Vincent de Paul building on Stanmore Rd, but sometime after 1954 (Bruce St appears in a Christchurch map of that date), the name was dropped and the road is not marked on modern maps. In 1940, the site of the St. Vincent de Paul shop was occupied by Morgan Davies, a cobbler, with Aldersley’s bakery immediately behind that to the west.

The butcher, Eric McPherson, moved from 321 Stanmore Rd, as shown on the map, to the shop at 75 North Avon Rd (at the north end of Stanmore Rd) in 1940.1

For many years there was a suburban police station at 245 Stanmore, known as Bingsland police station; the name was a carry-over from the earliest days of settlement in the area. The station, which was opened in 1879, retained that name until 1957, when it was changed to ‘North Avon’. The station moved to new premises at 45 North Parade in 1963, but the North Avon station closed altogether in 1968.2


Click on the picture above to see the map in detail.


Notes:
1  Interview with Noeline Hansen (née McPherson), Eric’s daughter.
2  Thomson, Barry, 1989. “Sharing the Challenge — A Social and Pictorial History of the
Christchurch Police District”, pp146–7.
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North Richmond Subdivision — 1925

11/6/2018

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This auction poster announces the residential development of land along Shirley Rd and Stapletons Rd in 1925. The area north of North Avon Road became part of Christchurch City in 1914 but was still largely farmland at this time.

Judging by handwritten notes on the poster, sales had been brisk; thirty-one of the fifty-one sections have been marked “Sold”. Some things, it seems, never change; real estate developers’ hyperbole for one thing. The sections are advertised as being ‘exceptionally high, well drained, beautiful soil, easily worked, will grow anything.’ Furthermore, they get ‘all the sun that shines.’ Presumably sections in other developments do not!?

The original poster for Jones, McCrostie Auctioneers Ltd measures 570 x 790 mm. The PDF document below has an A4 reproduction and a page of text giving some context to the development.

subdivision_sales_notice-1925-notes.pdf
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Langford & Rhind Undertakers

14/3/2018

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This photograph was reproduced in the RCN #74 (Dec–Jan 2009–10), along with a short history of John Rhind Funeral Directors written by John Rhind (the second person of that name to be involved with the firm). The photo is accompanied by a caption “Photo of hearse on horse and cart outside 16 London St; renumbered 19 London St”. According to information in the article, this photo must have been taken between 1906 and 1920, when the firm was known as “Langford & Rhind Undertakers”.

The photograph is a modern photographic copy print of an older original photograph. This copy has had a printed label attached at the bottom, which has later been partially removed.

A copy of the short history of the firm, John Rhind Funeral Directors, is available below.
john_rhind_funeral_directors.pdf
File Size: 514 kb
File Type: pdf
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1987 CCC Report: "Richmond Neighbourhood Improvement Area"

10/2/2018

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This report was prepared by the Christchurch City Council and published in 1987. The document consists of nine sections and includes descriptions of the Richmond area as it was in the late 1980s, as well as suggestions for improving the appearance, function and traffic flows in and around the area. So, it is an interesting snapshot of Richmond as it was thirty years ago as well as an insight into the thinking at the time, of people seeking to improve the area.

The report was based on discussions with local residents and involved input from several groups within CCC: Town Planning, Parks & Recreation and Traffic Engineering. Thirty years later, it is interesting to see which elements of the report’s recommendations have been implemented, and what changes have been made in the intervening years.

The document comprises 24 A4 pages, typewritten (using an electric typewriter?), including several photo reproductions (poor quality photocopies) and seven pages of maps and graphics. It is interesting to view a report produced using short-run analogue printing technology at a time when computer-based methods were just beginning to change drastically the look and feel of such publications.

ccc-richmond_neighbourhood_document-1987.pdf
File Size: 6662 kb
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Richmond Village Construction 1978–80

18/12/2017

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The current Richmond Village buildings at the south-western corner of Stanmore Rd and North Avon Rd were constructed in several phases between 1978–80. The new buildings replaced a number of older shops and houses that had long occupied sites at the north end of Stanmore Road. The new shopping centre represented a significant update to this commercial area and we are fortunate that one of the store owners made a record of the work over this period.

In 1978 Roy Burn ran a shoe store at 333 Stanmore Road. Roy took a series of 43 photos of the Richmond Village construction, beginning with the demolition of some of the old buildings and showing various stages in the construction of the new ones. We have prepared two PDF documents of these photos:

Showing the photos as they were presented in the original album --


richmond_village_photos-album_1978-80-a4.pdf
File Size: 8285 kb
File Type: pdf
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Showing each photo scanned at A4 size --
richmond_village_construction-roy_burn_photos.pdf
File Size: 31721 kb
File Type: pdf
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Some of the photos have handwritten notes recorded on their reverse, and a record of this information along with some other material about the shopping centre have been collected in another document:
richmond_village-roy_burn_photos-metadata.pdf
File Size: 140 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Complementing these documents is a record of some contemporary advertising material from the Pegasus Post, November 1980, when the complex opened:
richmond_village-pegasus_post_1980-11-12.pdf
File Size: 2226 kb
File Type: pdf
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