Avebury House
  • Home
  • About
    • Board of Trustees
    • Vision and Mission
  • 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

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.

Stanmore Road, Richmond — 1940

16/7/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
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.
2 Comments
Sarndra Lees link
17/9/2024 05:50:49 pm

What a great wee item that is!
I see Miss Vera BERGAMINI on there. Probably related to this family.
A blogpost I did a few years back now.
http://invokinglibitina.blogspot.com/2013/03/carlo-bergamini-unassuming-grave-for.html

Cheers
Sarndra

Reply
Justine Carmichael
24/1/2025 04:57:47 pm

This hand drawn map of Stanmore Rd from Swanns Rd up to North Avon Road is just what I have been looking for. When I was 5 years old in 1974 I lived at 233 Stanmore Road and started school at Richmond Primary School in January 1974. I have always remembered living there and the big old house we lived in next to the fish and chip shop which caught fire a few times when we lived there. On the corner of Swanns Rd and Stanmore Rd there was a dairy that my Grandparents owned and ran. I can not remember the boys home that used to be where the New World is now but I do remember the service station on the corner of North Avon Rd and Stapletons Rd. I do believe that either Gold Band Taxis or Bluestar Taxis may have been associated with the service station as my family drove Taxis and I remember going there at times. Oh what great memories I have from back then.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    About

    The Richmond History Group is based at Avebury House.

    Archives

    February 2024
    October 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    April 2023
    October 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2021
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017

    Categories

    All
    Avebury House
    Business/Commerce
    Institutions
    Local Families
    Richmond
    Streets
    WW1

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
    • Board of Trustees
    • Vision and Mission
  • 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