Follow the Red Brick Path

Recently we’ve been working in Lyttelton at the intersection of Canterbury and Winchester Streets for the installation of a replacement stormwater. While Lyttelton isn’t exactly over the rainbow, for archaeologists it is a pretty fantastic place to discover heritage and archaeology that has survived to the modern day. We have written about a number of sites in Lyttelton on the blog before, and there is always a good chance of encountering something beneath the ground in any project we’re involved in. The subject of the blog today is this particular find on the corner of Canterbury and Winchester Streets, which was a little different to our usual finds within the roadway. No lions, tigers or bears (oh my!), but instead, along with two rubbish pits and the corner of what was likely the original stone kerbing, we uncovered an earlier brick footpath just below the modern asphalt one. Tap your ruby slippers together and let’s go to 19th century Lyttelton to get a bit of context first.

Figure 1. Looking along Canterbury Street at the brick path (and the contractors at work!). Image: M. Hickey.

Both Canterbury and Winchester Street are part of the original town plan by Edward Jollie in 1849. Construction of the roads within the Lyttelton township began soon after their survey, but it was not until 1875 that the council finally agreed to fix the level of the street so that “the proper steps [could] be taken for forming the portion of Canterbury street between London and Winchester streets” (Amodeo, 2001: 148; Globe, 5/5/1875: 4, 16/6/1875: 3, 7/7/1875: 3; Press, 13/5/1875: 3, 14/5/1875: 4, 30/6/1875: 3; Star, 23/6/1875: 2). This work was likely necessary as sanitation issues were arising from residents throwing soap suds, vegetable matter, and refuse into the roadway of Canterbury Street (Press, 3/6/1875: 3). This would likely explain our two rubbish pits, although we are yet to do the analysis of these to see if the dates align. Although the Lyttelton Borough Council also commenced the construction of a footpath at this time, the threat of legal proceeding from H. Wynn Williams (the proprietor of the Albion Hotel, formerly located at modern site of Albion Square), whose section boundaries would be affected by the alteration of the roadway, stopped the footpath being completed at this time (Press, 22/9/1875: 3). Finally, in May 1891, the Lyttelton Borough Council adopted the suggestion made by the Foreman of Works that “the footpath in Canterbury Street should be laid down in brick” (Star, 5/5/1891: 4). Although no further information regarding the exact location of the brick footpath is recorded in the minutes of the Council meeting (which were printed in the local newspapers), it is likely that the section of the footpath in our project area was included in these works.

Figure 2. Detail from a photograph looking west along Winchester Street in 1901. William Hatherley’s store is visible on the corner of Canterbury Street along with the adjoining small cottage. More information on Hatherley below. Image: Rice, 2004: 46.

With regards to the property at the corner of Canterbury and Winchester Streets, evidence suggests that by at least May 1880 the premises were leased by Mr William Hatherly, who advertised his grocery store from premises on the “Corner of Canterbury and Winchester Street”, which he called “The People’s Store” (Star, 19/5/1880: 2). In 1890, the premise was advertised for sale, at which time it was described as comprising a “a large store and dwelling of seven rooms with cellarage” and also a “comfortable cottage of three rooms adjoining” (Star, 13/3/1890: 2). Hatherly later purchased the section he had been leasing since 1880 and shortly after advertised for tenders for the “erection of four rooms and alteration to present building, corner of Canterbury and Winchester Streets” (Lyttelton Times, 23/10/1891: 8). These alterations coincided with the Lyttelton Borough Council’s decision to have the footpath in Canterbury Street paved with brick, which suggests Hatherly may have altered the building to best align with the new street frontage.

The decision to pave the footpath with brick at the corner of Canterbury and Winchester Streets shows the important of the foot traffic in the area. While gravel footpaths were more commonly constructed in 19th century Canterbury, the use of brick-paved footpaths were more favourable in areas of heavy foot traffic as they were more pleasant to walk on and provided a better foothold in winter than smooth flagged or asphalted pavement (a very important consideration for Lytteltonians). Bricks were also favourable as they were easily laid, and also easily removed when it was necessary to lay or repair water-pipes or make connections with house drains. In England, brick footpaths were quite ornamental, often being laid in diamond or rosetta patterns (Hasluck, 1904: 76). While none of the bricks we found were quite that ornamental, it has been noted that only the best work would have the bricks at the corners of streets radiate around the street corner in a fan, rather than have two courses of bricks meet at right angles as was more common (Hasluck, 1904: 83).

The brick path exposed during works was a very short one to follow, comprising two sections at a maximum length of 3.5 and 3.8 m each. The path had been disrupted by services laid in the 20th century but the laying of the modern asphalt footpath directly on top of the bricks had done a great job at preserving the remaining sections. All of the bricks were marked with a ‘W’, the manufacturers mark for the Wigram Brothers brickmakers. Wigram Brothers began manufacturing and selling bricks in 1886 when they purchased the brickyard formally owned by Royse, Stead and Co. and the New Zealand Grain Agency Company and Mercantile Ltd in Heathcote (Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser 9/7/1886: 3, Cyclopedia Company Limited, 1903: 292). “W” marked bricks stopped being produced in 1903 when Wigram Brothers merged with T. N. Horsley to form the Christchurch Brick and Tile Company (Press 14/7/1903: 1). The bricks at the corner were laid differently in more of an angled pattern to fit the corner. Although we could only see part of this section, they appeared to radiate out from the corner – more like the fan pattern described above.

Figure 3. Part of the south portion of the bricks, in straight courses. Most of this section was able to be left in place after the completion of the recent works. Image: M. Hickey.

Figure 4. Part of the northern section of the bricks, with a lot of fill material marking the service which cut through the pathway. Image: M. Hickey.

Figure 5. The brick path was just below the modern asphalt surface, as seen here. Image: M. Hickey.

Figure 6. The northern section of the path at the corner. The bricks here are angled to go around the corner rather than have two straight courses meeting at right angles – probably a mark of good brick laying. Image: M. Hickey.

Figure 7. Out of the ground and all cleaned up: one of the Wigram Brother bricks from the path. Image: J. Jones.

This all the information we have for now, as these finds are pretty recent and we’re yet to complete the report on the project. As the project was concentrated on the intersection of the two streets, we don’t know how much of the path remains along the rest of Canterbury Street, although we didn’t encounter it again on the northern side of the intersection. It was great to see that previous asphalting of the footpath kept the bricks in situ and in good condition for us to find later. We’re big fans of heritage fabric being left in place when there is no need to remove it to carry out a project, so it was fantastic that someone had come to the same conclusion in the past.

Megan Hickey and Lydia Mearns.

References
Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, 1877-1939. [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/.

Amodeo, C., 2001. Forgotten Forty-niners: Being an account of the Men & Women who paved the way in 1849 for the Canterbury Pilgrims in 1850. Christchurch: The Caxton Press.

Cyclopedia Company Ltd, 1903. [online] The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District]. Available at: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-corpus-cyclopedia.html
d4.html.

Globe, 1874-1882. [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/.

Hasluck, P.N., 1904. Road and Footpath Construction. Cassell & Company.

Lyttelton Times, 1851-1914. [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/.

Press, 1861-1945. [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/.

Star, 1868-1920. [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/.

Rice, G.W., 2004. Lyttelton: Port and Town – An Illustrated History. Canterbury University Press.

1 thought on “Follow the Red Brick Path

  1. Greetings to you Megan and Lydia, and enthusiastic team, as well as “us others” 🙂
    Thankyou again for yet another interesting and different article, on beneath the Christchurchian’s feet. And in this case further afield.
    I am afraid you have been foiled by a well-drilled trio, who at the drop of a hat (hat-pin actually) instantly assume stances of apparent toil. This art form takes years to achieve the skill levels displayed so admirably here in the ‘roadworks’ image.
    If taking up your magnifying glasses you follow along, you will see that in fact? the person in the digger cab is asleep-at-the-levers; having been lulled into this condition most enjoyably by the good book dropped at his feet. The one on the right (with the spear-thingy) has in-haste missed the shovel handle and grabbed the wrong implement. He’d been alerted by the minuscule squeek of the camera button beginning to be pressed. The middle-man is obviously ‘the boss; foreman’. His attained level of professional ‘Oim workin’ stance is soooo good!. I bet it took decades for him to achieve this level of theatrics. 🙂
    Sigh.
    Obviously ‘someone’ has actually done quite a bit of work there. 🙂

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