Oxford Street Lyttleton

To walk a block uphill from the rehomed Lyttelton Information Centre, is to be amongst symbols of the growth and change which often are dotted around port towns.

Here they have gathered together by accident or design, to illustrate a story of Canterbury and to deny anyone who considers New Zealand devoid of history. Maybe this location of many blessings also endures to serve as a salve to Lyttelton which lost much in the earthquakes, including a plethora of bigger buildings further downhill.

Volcanos of course, were the first chapter in the tale of the peninsula that hosts the harbour which became the landing place for many new Cantabrians. But there has been no news on the volcanic front for five million years. Scientists are certain there is no magma beneath the dormant volcanos despite anxiety-fuelled public speculation which followed the Canterbury earthquakes. The things that are visible here happened more recently.

Ngati Kuri, Ngati Mamoe and Ngai Tahu had frequented the harbour and called it Whakaraupo, gathering food and travelling by foot and waka, they did not need the deepwater port which became Lyttelton but called the general area Ohinehou. It is thought that there was a pa or kainga here long ago. Evidence of this was found during archaeological studies which followed the earthquakes. Maori gave names to two nearby features, a harbourside cave named Urumau, which became a victim of the construction of coastal defences during World War Two, and the shallow bay just to the east, called Te Awaparahi, recently reclaimed for port service.

In between times, Captain Cook in 1770 named the entire peninsula for his onboard botanist friend Joseph Banks, thinking it was an island, which it had been, much earlier, before the silty plains reached out to join with it. Soon after, it became understood that Lyttelton (then Port Cooper, then Port Victoria) would become an excellent Port. Following Cook were Te Rauparaha, on a raid, whaling parties from Europe, explorers and then settlers from France and various other visitors, some of whom were inevitably criminals (including Australian ones).

Oxford Street became the site of the infamous Lyttelton prison. As the main South Island Gaol it incarcerated thousands between 1851 and 1922.
Seven men were hung within its walls. It's Hard Labour Gang built roads and stone walls around Lyttelton. They also built Fort Jervois on Ripapa Island and the Quarantine Station on Quail Island. Sheep smuggler James McKenzie was imprisoned here and escaped. The site is Heritage Protected, though not much is left other than the Chief Warders House, on Oxford Street.

The monument in the old Gaol grounds is not so old, this is evident from it's face which speaks of modernism. It is the 1953 clock tower in the form of a tapered obelisk, crafted from mosaic sandstone. At night it is uplit, spookily framed by the old Gaol-built walls, complete with seasonal ivy. Named for celebrated war hero Sir Charles Upham, the clock was originally designed by Christchurch Architect John Hendry. It stopped dead upon the moment of the second Canterbury Earthquake and wasn't running again until 2017. The juxtaposition of these two contrasting relics is barely explicable, and made more confusing by a Victorian style manicured garden, also called Upham.

A narrow alley leads to St David Street, and that's where you can see the plain evidence of Pakeha history, in rows of cottages, some of definite historic vintage, some less so. All are survivors of the earthquakes, maybe a little more spread out than they were before a few in between neighbours tumbled around their chimneys, a decade ago. The hastily erected warehouse style replacements for the grand Victorian buildings that used to grace the corner of Sumner and Oxford Streets are no tribute to the past. (Google Street View will show you 2009 imagery) But not all history and aesthetic has been erased. The hotch-potch of cottages across the street are of all styles and vintages, painted in all colours and built and repaired with all manner of materials, a testament to the attitude of the town.

Then there is another memorial, the Norman Kirk Memorial Pool, just up the hill, dedicated to a Prime Minister who occupied a different time and space, and was oddly not directly connected with Lyttelton. This is a summer pool, fixed in the ideology of 1970s New Zealand when fresh air, cold water and a pulling up one's woolen socks ought to build a solid contributor to society. Many such pools, including those with exactly the same name, in Otara and Waimate, have since been roofed and heated. But not this one. It still does the job it was commissioned for though, attracting thousands of visitors in the summer. Kirk had been born in Waimate and was a popular Prime Minister from 1972 until he died suddenly in 1974.

And to turn to the contemporary - fittingly, the jewel on this street is the recently rebuilt Lyttelton Primary School, place of learning for about 200 children. Following the earthquakes and amalgamation with the town's other school, the classrooms were rebuilt in the current style of Modern Learning Environments, and the staff treated to a trip to Melbourne to learn how to drive the Ministry's new pedagogy. Adorning the ancient fence of the school field, which doubles as a town domain (with a modern playground) is a kindly sign, directing towards the skateramp.

From here, though much was lost, much is still present, and the view is out to Otamahua- Quail Island, where Ngai Tahu gathered kaimoana and seabird eggs, the prisoners built the quarantine station hosted victims of influenza and left the grave of one young man who died from leprosy.

The rest of the story, is in the future.

A wonderful Historic Walk will take you around the other many and varied sites of Lyttelton township.

Image Credits: Google Maps