Christchurch

Christchurch

Captain Thomas arrived in 1849 and decided on the location of the city and started to plan it. The city got its name from the Canterbury Association whose membership included a large number of former scholars from Christchurch College, Oxford.

The first stop was the Riverside Market, a popular eating and drinking place from breakfast, through coffee, lunch afternoon tea, aperitifs to evening restaurants and late night drinking.

Inside is a mass of elbow to elbow food and drink offerings.

Some of the upstairs.

Looking down to the ground floor. Just an hour later, this place would be heaving. I had visited it the night before but it was so crowded, noisy and with no where to sit so I walked out and found a quiet although more expensive restaurant to eat in.   

                                        

Just along the river going downstream is the Bridge of Remembrance. It is an arch at the city centre end of a bridge, built in 1923 to remember the fallen of Canterbury's soldiers with some of the fronts that they served on, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Gallipoli, France and Belgium. Later additions for the Second World War were added such as Crete, Egypt and North Africa where Charles Upton won his VCs plus the Pacific, Atlantic, Italy, and Europe

I followed the Avon River that flows through the centre of the city and past some steps and seats overlooking the river. There were geese, ducks and gulls on the water, both local indigenous and introduced species. Beneath the surface of the clear waters, I could see fish and freshwater eels.

Set on an island in the river was the remains of a watermill that ground grain for both bakers and brewers.

Nearby was one of the older buildings that survived the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011...

...but many buildings were badly damaged or collapsed. The cathedral is still undergoing repairs to preserve it.

Although some of the building is still unrecognisable as a cathedral behind the supporting steel structure, the scaffolding and plastic sheeting.

Not far is New Regent Street, like the Riverside Market, a popular eating and drinking venue but this early in the morning when I visited, there were just a few breakfasters or coffee drinkers. As an aside. I had got up early to walk about the city, but even in the centre of the city, there didn't seem to be a rush hour. The streets were quiet, both of pedestrians, cyclists and cars.

A facade along New Regent Street. The facade has been repaired but the building is too dangerous to be used so the ground floor has been bricked up for strength and hosts a colourful street mural.

A nearby bandstand that was of some significance but I wasn't to know it until later.

I walked around Victoria Square which despite the name is a park, with a statue of Queen Victoria.

There are several other items of interest such as a sloping granite sett covered slope down to the river to make it easier to water horses, built in 1875 or this memorial to Francois Le Lievre who was just a sailor but he had important historical connections.

He arrived new Zealand on a French whaling ship in 1838 but en route he his ship had stopped off at St Helena to replenish there supplies of fresh water. It was here that after the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon had finally been defeated, for the second time, after he had escaped banishment on Elba and reattained power to threaten the world order for the second time. 

Napoleon died in 1821 and the post mortem concluded that he had died of a stomach ulcer. The reality is stranger than fiction as he actually died of arsenic poisoning. This wasn't a plot by the British navy but a by product of the Victorian passion for fashion. The wallpaper for his accommodation included arsenic to produce the vivid green colours requested. In the tropical, humid heat of the area, the arsenic leached into the air and slowly poisoned Napoleon.

Whilst Le Lievre was on the island and the ship re-provisioned, he took the chance to visit where Napoleon had been banished for the last time, and to visit his grave. Whilst he was there, he took several cuttings of willow growing next to Napoleons grave on the remote island in the mid-Atlantic. There is documentary evidence that the first willows planted along the river grew from cuttings taken by  Le Lievre.

One of the giant willow trees along the river.

                                                 

Also in the park is a statue to James Cook.

I had got up early and had waited a long time for the sun shine to be right and for the next tram to come through to take a photo of it in front of an old building I waited ages for the light and the setting but the old wooden tram din't appear but all I got was a picture of the more modern Christchurch Tramways car passing the building. 

At 10am I walked to the Quake City museum which uses pictures and fragments of the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. At the top right of the picture is the same bandstand as just above but where the pile of rubble ro the right is in the photo is now a row of modern two storey houses.

I purposefully avoided going to the Botanical Gardens as they were on my schedule for when I was next in Christchurch so I walked past the entrance down to the Avon River where you can hire a punt.

And just over a bridge ia a memorial. I didn't know what to expect but it is just a walkway and a wall along the edge of the river with an inscription. I had expected something more grandiose or even modern and horrible but this is all there is.