Today on the blog we are going to be looking into steam laundries, both their use in the 19^th century as well as how they relate to us today. Now, I know what you’re thinking, what is a steam laundry and why should I care? Well, in answer to that I would pitch that looking into the steam laundry industry from the late 1800s can allow us to draw some parallels on issues relevant to us in 2021.

The invention of the steam engine catapulted a lot of technologies into existence during the industrial revolution – including steam trains, various locomotives and the commercial steam laundry. Generally, the steam engine replaced other forms of energy, to become the primary source of power throughout the 19^th century and into the early 20^th century. A communal approach to washing clothes was not a new concept to the 1800s. In fact, this was common practice throughout history. Washhouses were scattered across Europe, harnessing water from natural rivers and springs to feed into the gazebo-like buildings – which only had a roof and no walls.

An Italian washhouse during the turn of the 20th century. – “Sanremo – Women of the populace at the wash house”. Image: Wikimedia Commons.  

Those privileged enough to afford maids would hand their dirty laundry off to them. According to “Mrs Beeton’s Guide to Household Management” of 1861, private laundry practice consisted of a wide variety of processes. In some cases, whole washhouses were attached to the kitchen for easy access. The women would use two basins of water – one cold to wring out initial stains and one hot to scald the clothing before it went through the laborious process of being dried and ironed. In other cases, whole rooms were dedicated to ironing, drying, and mangling. Mrs. Beeton stressed that more delicate fabrics were washed and treated at home regardless of access to a communal laundromat. Clearly, this was a tedious process in comparison to the modern method of chucking laundry into the washing machine and pressing a few buttons

However, the development of the steam engine in the 1800s revolutionized laundry permanently, as it proved far more time efficient and cost effective. Steam engines were used to drive washing machines, while boilers were used to heat water as well as run large steam presses. Each task was divided and divvied up so that each employee would have an individual task. This ensured that a larger volume of washing was completed each day than one could do in a personal washhouse. Specialized machines were developed to aid the specific processes of washing, drying, bleaching and mangling – among others – making the laundromats even more time and cost efficient. This was due to the high levels of pollution in cities during the industrial revolution – leaving one’s clothes and sheets often smelling of smoke. It was for efficiency, ease and accessibility that steam laundries rose in popularity.

19th Century steam laundry. 1883 engraving of a steam laundry in Berlin, Germany. Image: Sciencephotolibrary.

Interestingly, steam laundries became central to women’s rights issues within certain contexts. This was due to the high number of female employees within these laundromats, which were very commonly owned by men who were unsympathetic to the needs of female workers. As washhouses began to generate a bit of money, male owners of these establishments began to make themselves known as ‘laundrymen’. This was a gendered term to differentiate themselves from the female workers, as well as add a bit of prestige to their occupation. They generally made the argument that laundry was not an exclusively female concern, as this new machinery introduced into the washhouses needed a “male brain” to keep it organised and running. Of course, the women who had been burdened with the task of laundry for generations upon generations accused these laundrymen of not knowing nearly as much as the women employees, yet were reaping more benefits (Wang 2002). Furthermore, a wide variety of important questions surrounding gender issues were raised as a result of these commercial laundries, some resounding even as far as present day.

Today, doing the washing is largely a task which is expected of women as opposed to men. When watching a commercial about anything to do with laundry – whether it’s detergent, stain remover, or washing machines – the people represented are almost always women. It is still a societal expectation that women, especially mothers, have to take up the maternal role of caring for the household fabrics.

Similar to modern advertisements, laundry powder manufacturers in the 19th century also targeted their advertisements towards women. Image, top: Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, 28.05.1862: 1; bottom: Lyttelton Times 02.02.1865: 2.

The steam powered laundromat continued to rise in popularity until the invention of electric washing machines proved more accessible and efficient as they could be installed in private homes. Ironically, these machines that undermined the steam laundry industry were modeled off the very machines promoted by laundrymen. The drive belts were replaced by more efficient electric motors mounted directly onto the machines, small enough to fit in a private dwelling.

What now seems like outdated technology was once cutting edge! Image: Otago Daily Times 20.05.1949: 2. 

The earliest steam laundry that we have been able to find reference to in New Zealand, was the ‘Otago Steam Laundry’, which opened around 1876 in the North-East Valley, sporting nine rooms and washing machines all the way from San Francisco. Interestingly, a breach of women’s rights was evident in New Zealand’s steams laundries as it was in Europe. A newspaper clipping reads that ‘George Millar, of the Otago Steam Laundry, was proceeded against this morning for a breach of the Employment of Female Act, by causing his woman to work in his laundry on Saturday afternoons.

Lyttelton Times, 31/10/1877: 3.   

May 1881 saw the opening of a steam laundry in Lyttelton by Mr. W. Holmes. The laundry sported a steam drying room, folding room, as well as an engine, boilers, tubes and mangles (a device used to remove excess water/ironing fabrics).

An 1885 survey plan of Lyttelton. The property of Holmes is highlighted in red. Image: LINZ, 1885.

This is a survey plan of Holmes’ land from 20th of July 1901, 18 years after the image prior. Evidently some buildings have been added to the land since 1885. The little black squares off to the side most likely represent the small cottages on the plot, while the longer square probably represents the steam laundry. Image: LINZ, 1901.

Mr Holmes owned the laundry. His wife, Mrs Homes, and two girls were employed to work within the Steam Laundry. Here we see evidence of a continuation of issues seen earlier in Europe and North America between male owners and female employees. The services of the laundry included  ‘starching, ironing and mangling’. Starching clothing was used to add crispness and structure to linen, as well as a higher resistance to creasing or stains. Mrs. Holmes expresses her enthusiasm for Bergers Starch in particular, as she states in a newspaper clipping that it has a ‘better finish and gloss than any starch I have ever used.

This advertisement from The Lyttleton Times shows a job advertisement for three women to work in the Lyttleton Steam Laundry. Image: Lyttelton Times 07/01/1890: 1. 

Advertisement for Bergers Starch. Image: Press 17/01/1890: 8. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Homes passed a short time after the opening of his laundromat – in 1897. The business was left to his wife, Catherine Holmes, who seemed keen to sell the land as soon as she could. However, it seemed like a struggle to sell the business along with the land accompanying it, as we see various advertisements for the selling of the business beginning early 1898. In 1906, part of the property was sold to a Lyttelton railway signalman, Charles Philip Ore Kempthorne. It is not clear if the steam laundry continued to operate after Mr. Homes’ death, although there are no advertisements for its services in newspapers of the time.

Mrs. Holmes numerous attempts to sell the property!. From top to bottom: Lyttelton Times 18/04/1898: 8; 14/01/1899: 1; 17/01/1900: 1; 19/04/1901: 8; 19/03/1904: 11. 

As you might expect, we became interested in Holmes’ Steam Laundry because we did some work at the site. Most of the material that we found was not directly linked to the steam laundry business but just general domestic objects. This material was probably deposited by Holmes and his family, or by any tenants of the other cottages located on the site, and was very typical of the types of objects that every household in 19th century Christchurch and Lyttelton would have owned (with one exception- eagle eyed readers of this blog may recognise a familiar artefact that inspired its own blog post in the image below)

A selection of artefacts found at the site. These were probably used by the Holmes’ and provide an insight into their lives. Image: C. Watson.

However, one object stuck out as an obvious find from the long-gone laundromat. This was the remains of a boiler, probably a vertical boiler. A vertical boiler is used to produce a low, steady stream of steam, as water is boiled inside its large vertical cylindrical shell.

The boiler! Though I am not an expert on the workings of a vertical boiler, after comparing with a diagram these holes seem to either be a fire hole, man hole or hand hole. Image: M. Hickey.

For those of you who, like me, weren’t exactly familiar with Vertical Boilers, here’s a diagram. Simple Vertical Boiler, Construction, Working And List of Parts. Image:  MechanicalJungle. 

Unfortunately the quality of this photography isn’t the greatest, but a similar boiler can be seen in the background of the photogram. Image: New Zealand Herald 26/02/1931: 5.

The boiler as it was uncovered in our trench! Image: M. Hickey.

The vertical boiler sitting in the ground before it was dug up. Image: M. Hickey.

It is fascinating how looking into the Holmes’ Steam Laundry can allow us to reflect on the parallels between the 19^th century and today. Though many may think that a Lyttleton laundromat which shut down business in 1897 is a topic that is irrelevant to society today, when looking deeper I believe that it can tell us a lot about the foundations in which New Zealand was built. Feminist issues migrated to New Zealand with the British, often coming to a head with a laundromat as a backdrop. Looking into the steam laundry also reminds us that people in the early stages of New Zealand’s development were not so different from us today often facing similar issues.

Rosie Smith

References

LINZ., 1885. DP 3829, Canterbury. Landonline.

LINZ., 1901. DP 1677, Canterbury. Landonline.

Wang, Joan. “Gender, Race and Civilization: The Competition between American Power Laundries and Chinese Steam Laundries, 1870s – 1920s.” American Studies International 40, no. 1 (2002): 52-73. Accessed September 4, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41280954.

As part of the New Zealand Archaeology Week, Clara recently gave a talk entitled, Elixirs, Ointments and Tonics: Medicine in Nineteenth Century Christchurch. This talk was part of the event, Beneath Our Feet: Archaeological Stories of Place. The talks from this event were recorded by Plains FM and are available as a podcast here (Clara’s talk starts at 23 minutes). This blog post provides the images and captions from Clara’s talk for anyone who wasn’t able to attend the event but is still interested in listening to the talk.

Tonight I’m going to be speaking about what I’d say is probably my favourite site that I’ve worked on in Christchurch. It was the site of a 19th century doctor’s house and surgery, and at the site we found a large assemblage of medicine bottles and other medical equipment.

This is the Pegasus Arms building. It’s one of the oldest still standing buildings in Christchurch, with the first part of the house constructed in 1852, The story I’m going to tell you tonight begins here in 1853, when Dr Burrell Parkerson purchased the property and the surrounding town sections. Image: NZHPT Field Record Form Collection.

Dr Parkerson was the first of several doctors to live at the site. Pictured here is Dr. John William Smith Coward, who lived at the site between 1862 and 1881. I believe that most of the artefacts that we found at the site likely date to Coward’s period, but more on that soon. Image: Roy Holderness. 

Here’s our site in 1862, when Dr Coward purchased the site from Dr Fisher. The doctors owned the three sections outlined in blue, with the house, which is now known as the Pegasus Arms, located in the north east corner of the site. The shaded red area is the area that we excavated, which you can see is to the immediate west of the house. Image: Fooks, 1862.

In 1869, Dr Coward undertook renovations to the property, constructing an adjoining surgery and consulting room. We can see that extension on the 1877 Strouts map, which shows the western part of the doctor’s surgery was located within our site. The house continued to be occupied by doctors until 1903, when Dr Moorhouse built a new residence on the corner of Antigua Street and Oxford Tce. Moorhouse removed the consulting room and surgery from the old house and attached it to his new house. Image: Strouts, 1877.

Looking at the building we can see the side door that would have led to the consulting room and surgery, and while we were excavating we found bricks that were likely either from the surgery’s foundations, or the landscaping surrounding it.

Now this is my favourite site I’ve worked on for a few reasons. The first is to do with the actual archaeology of the site. At the site we found a gully running east to west through the middle of the site. As many of you may know, Christchurch was built on a swamp. The Avon River flows diagonally through the centre of Christchurch, and leading onto it were gullies, which are shown here on the 1850 map by these grey lines. These gullies were natural depressions created by the river. Some may have always held water that flowed into the Avon, others might have only filled with water when it rained or the river was in flood. Image: Jollie, 1850.

Here’s our site in 1850. We can see the gully running west from the Avon, through our site, and out onto Antigua Street.

And here’s our gully as we were excavating it. This is at the base of the gully, which you can see was distinguished by a dark grey silt that cut through the natural buff-yellow silt of the site.

And this is a cross-section of the gully. You can see how the gully has a sloping, U-shaped base, and that it has lots of different layers of fill building it up. Artefacts were found in these upper layers, roughly 500 to 800 mm below the modern site surface.

From commentaries in Christchurch newspapers we know that as early as 1863 the landowners surrounding this section of gully and the council were talking about filling it in. And we also know from these commentaries, along with other excavations we’ve done on different sections of gully in Christchurch, that while some sections of gully were infilled with clean fill, household rubbish and waste was also dumped in them. In 1879 Dr Powell, the Health Officer for Christchurch, wrote a damning report on the public health risk that these gullies posed. The rubbish that was dumped in them created a breeding ground for disease, and Powell noted a pattern where those that lived closest to the gully regularly were ill with diphtheria and typhoid, including, somewhat ironically, the children of Dr Coward and the grandchildren of Dr Parkerson.

Most of the artefacts we found deposited in the gully pre-dated Dr Powell’s 1879 report, suggesting that those neighbouring it heeded the warning and stopped disposing their rubbish into the gully. Which leads me to the next aspect of the site that I find so interesting: the artefacts that we found. Unlike other gullies that we’ve excavated before, where pharmaceutical bottles made up around 5-6% of the total glass assemblage, 39% of the glass artefacts found in this gully were medicine bottles. In addition to those, another deposit of artefacts was found at the site, outside of the gully’s footprint, and 91% of the glass artefacts from this deposit were pharmaceutical bottles.

The pharmaceutical bottles found at the site included large storage carboys, that would have been used to store bulk medicinal products in.

Smaller round, oval, rectangular and octagonal pharmaceutical bottles were present, along with round and square vials. These were likely used for both storing products in, and also for dispensing medicine to patients.

Two bottles had numbers incised on them- no doubt done by the doctor to distinguish between the contents of the otherwise identical bottles. It’s likely that most of the bottles would have probably had paper labels. But unfortunately these don’t survive particularly well being buried for 150 years.

We also found shop rounds. These were bottles that were used by chemists to display products in their windows or behind their counter, but our doctor was likely using them for storage. These were quite cool as we don’t see them very much on our usual domestic sites.

We also found several other medical related artefacts. These included three conical measures with the measurements incised on in fluid ounces, a glass stirring rod, the plunger from a glass syringe, a plain bowl that was likely used in the doctor’s surgery, two different infusion pots, one that was almost complete and another that was represented only by the lid, and the corner of what we believe is likely a pill tile. The infusion pot is probably my favourite artefact from the site, just because I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was designed with an internal lip, about where the top of the handle starts, that a lid with perforated holes would site on. The jug was filled with hot water and medicinal products were placed on the lid to infuse into the water.

These artefacts all provide an insight into healthcare in Christchurch in the 1860s and 1870s. The doctors who lived at the site played an important role in 19th century Christchurch. They treated patients in the consulting room and surgery attached to the house, at the hospital, located just down the road, and they also did house visits to their patients. In addition to that, they were medical officers for public institutions like the asylum and prison, and even acted as the coroner for the city.

Which leads me to my final reason for why I find the site so interesting, what happens when we compare it to a typical domestic assemblage. Many of the sites we excavate were the sites of 19th century houses, meaning we have a good understanding on the objects and products that people were using and consuming in 19th century Christchurch. Several of the artefacts we found at the site were unique. I’ve never found conical measures, infusion pots, and glass syringes on a domestic site before. Others were unusual- I’ve seen the large storage carboys before, but I wouldn’t say they were common. However, some of the pharmaceutical bottles are common. These were the vials, and the oval, octagonal, and rectangular pharmaceutical bottles, that the doctors would have dispensed medicine in. We find these bottle styles relatively often in our domestic assemblages, indicating that people were visiting either the doctor or a pharmacist and having medicine prescribed to them.

But what we find at our domestic sites as well, that we didn’t find at all at our doctor’s site, are patent medicine bottles. The lack of any real regulation on medicines in the 19th century led to the growth of patent medicines. These were often advertised as what we refer to as a cure-all product- meaning that you name a symptom and this medicine will be able to cure it. Some were simple herbal remedies, others contained more eye-raising ingredients, such as alcohol, cocaine, and opium. The medicine was patented by the doctor or chemist who created it, and was generally sold in a bottle that was embossed with the products name to ensure its legitimacy.

The epitome of patent medicines, at least in my opinion, was Holloway’s ointment. Holloway’s ointment claimed to cure, and I hope you’re ready for this, bad legs, bad breasts, burns, bunions, bite of mosquito and sandflies, scalds, chilblains, cancers, elephantiasis, fistulas, gout, glandular swellings, lumbago, piles, rheumatism, sore-throats, sore-heads, scurvy, tumours, ulcers, yaws, rheumatism, sore nipples, old wounds, bronchitis, coughs, colds, and all skin diseases. Studies done on the ointment have showed that it was a herbal ointment made up of aloe, rhubarb root and ginger, cinnamon, cardamon, saffron, glaubers salt and potassium sulphate and that any healing effect was probably little more than placebo.

That we find these patent medicines from England and America, as well as locally produced patent medicines like Bonnington’s Irish Moss, at our domestic sites, shows that the residents of Christchurch were consuming a wide range of medical substances and that they were purchasing both medicines that were prescribed by doctors and chemists, as well as choosing to look to the likes of patent medicines to cure their illnesses- perhaps reflecting the quality of medicine in the 19th century, which was in the process of developing the scientific practices it has today.

If you’re interested in seeing the artefacts that I’ve spoken about tonight for yourself, then I urge you to head on down to the South Library where the artefacts will be on display for the entirety of Archaeoloy Week.

And finally, if you’re interested in seeing more Christchurch archaeology content, Underground Overground Archaeology have facebook and Instagram accounts that we regularly share finds on, and a WordPress blog with more detailed posts- so definitely check those out if you haven’t already.

If you’re reading this and it’s May 2021, then the artefacts are still on display at the South Library- so definitely go and check them out in person!

Clara Watson

Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.    

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Port Hills may not be mountains as such, but they formed a formidable barrier for the first European Settlers. Of course, Māori had a number of well-established trails across the landscape prior to European settlement. Many of these paths were used by European settlers and take the form of many of the landmarks and main roads of our modern city. While there are many paths taken by European settlers in the mid-19^th century, two of the most important are the Bridle Path and the Sumner Road.

The history of these two paths is intertwined. When Captain Joseph Thomas selected the sites of Lyttelton and Christchurch on behalf of the Canterbury Association in 1849, he was faced with the difficult task of establishing a navigable path between the new port and township. After much deliberation, the route selected ran from the eastern end of the Lyttelton township along the Tapuaeharuru cliffs into Sumner. Due to the lack of local labour, Captain Thomas initially brought 120 Māori workmen from the North Island to cut the wide track from Lyttleton to Sumner using pick and shovel. The workmen cut an initial bridle path out towards Officers Point, filling up gullies as they went along. The toughest part of the construction was the section of road above what is today the Cashin Quay breakwater, where the workmen had to blast through solid rock to form a pathway. This was a monumental task which took a significant amount of time to accomplish, and the area came to be known as the “Sticking Point”. A review of accounts of the work carried out on the Sumner Road between 1849 and 1851 suggests that £4,730 was spent on the heavy excavation work and £360 was spend on forming the line, while a further £405 was spent on constructing retaining walls and £83 spent on drainage (Lyttelton Times, 16/5/1855: 9). This suggests that not only were the workmen blasting through the stone and forming up the line of the road, but they were also constructing drains and retaining walls.

By March 1850 Thomas had spent all of the £20,000 that the Canterbury Association had allocated for public works. When John Robert Godley arrived in April 1850, the depleted state of the funds forced him to suspend all but maintenance work on the Sumner Road (Ogilvie, 2009: 33-34). Although work had been halted on the Sumner Road, the anticipated arrival of the Canterbury Pilgrims at the end of 1850, meant there was still an urgent need to provide access to Christchurch and the plains.

As a temporary measure, Captain Thomas decided to improve the small track on the western end of the Lyttelton township, beginning at Ticehurst Road and leading up over the hills into the Heathcote Valley. With a budget of just £300, a work gang of 70 European and Māori workmen, a hastily constructed the path up the long spur and down into the valley. This track quickly became known as “The Bridle Path” (Amodeo, 2001: 152-153; Ogilvie, 2009: 34, 105; Height and Straubel, 1965: 122-123; Lyttelton Times 18/1/1851: 6)

The Bridle Path became a flurry of activity as the majority of the newly arrived immigrants disembarked and travelled over the Port Hills into Christchurch. Most accounts of the path at this time express dissatisfaction with the rough, hastily cut track. Edward Ward, who had arrived in Lyttelton on board the Charlotte Jane, indicated that “The little tract, which formed a sort of bay between the spurs of the hills, was of most irregular quality” (Ogilvie, 2009: 123). The steep gradient of the path meant that the majority of the trip had to be taken on foot with horses being dismounted and led over the steep summit. For most of the immigrants this meant carrying their possessions on their backs, though regular communication between port and plain by means of pack horses was established in January 1851 (Height and Straubel, 1965: 184; Lyttelton Times 18/1/1851: 5). The Canterbury Association appear to have continued to undertake some improvements to the Bridle Path during the first few years of the fledging settlement. Although the full extent of these works is not clear, in August 1852 a Mr Thompson was able to successfully drive the first empty two-horse dray over the Bridle Path (Lyttelton Times 1/2/1851: 3, 29/1/1851: 5, 12/4/1851: 2, 21/8/1852: 7, 10). Despite the success of Thompson’s inaugural cart trip, the path was still considered too dangerous for more than foot traffic and the occasional horse (Lyttelton Times 7/1/1854: 8, 16/5/1855: 6; Press 23/5/1914: 8).

By the end of 1864 the road board had spent £332 14s in maintaining and upgrading the Bridle Path (Press 5/1/1865: 3). The Heathcote Road Board continued to maintain and upgrade the Bridle Path for the remainder of the 19^th century and into the 20^th century (Lyttelton Times 6/1/1876: 1, 2/2/1882: 1, 13/3/1883: 1, 23/3/1886: 1, 30/9/1902: 6; Press 5/9/1872: 3, 9/5/1891: 3, 8/6/1896: 6, 14/2/1903: 9; Star 20/3/1874: 2, 28/4/1877: 2). The path remains a highly popular walking track today, although largely for more recreational uses. If you’re a pretty fit individual it could be a way to avoid that morning commute.

Going back to the Sumner Road, following the passing of the New Zealand Constitution Act in 1852, the newly formed Canterbury Provincial Council took over the authority for the formation and maintenance of the roads throughout Canterbury. The Council’s Ordinance of 1854 established a Lyttelton and Christchurch Road Commission to determine the best means of communication between the sea port and the interior. The commissioners confirmed that, despite the cost, the route via Evans Pass and Sumner which had initially been selected by Captain Thomas in 1849 was indeed the best option. However, they also determined that the portion of the line extending between Polhil’s Bay and Evans Pass should be constructed on a lower elevation (Lyttelton Times, 22/4/1854: 14). This new line of road was surveyed to the east of the original line in 1855 (Lyttelton Times, 12/11/1866: 3). This line of road is today known as the Old Sumner Road.

It took a further three years for the Provincial Council to form the Sumner Road from Lyttelton to Christchurch into a navigable path. During this time, the residents of Lyttelton appear to have become exasperated with the council’s efforts, for under their own volition they utilised prison labour to improve the drainage of part of the Sumner Road by installing necessary culverts and gratings (Lyttelton Times, 16/8/1856: 6, 12/11/1856: 7). The road was officially opened on Monday 24 August 1857 (Lyttelton Times, 26/8/1857: 4). Despite the success of the inaugural trip, it proved a perilous endeavour which indicated that the provincial council would have to undertake further works and invest more money before the road could be considered complete to a standard to allow carts to safety navigate (Lyttelton Times, 5/9/1857: 1, 9/1/1858: 4). By the end of the decade cart traffic along the road was steadily increasing (Lyttelton Times, 29/10/1859: 3).

As motorcar traffic increased after the turn of the century it became necessary to remove the dangerous zig-zag corners at Evan’s Pass by blasting a new straighter route. In 1913, it was decided that this new route was to extend from Captain Thomas’s original line of the Sumner Road (Press, 19/9/1913: 4). It was at this time that the line of road that had been laid out on the lower elevation on the advice of the Lyttelton and Christchurch Road Commission in 1854 (now known as the old Sumner Road) was abandoned. The new Sumner Road route to the summit was completed in 1916 (Ogilvie, 2009: 36).

Aerial imagery from 1925-1929 showing the diversion of Sumner Road. Old Sumner Road is visible as the lower road in the image. Image: Canterbury Maps, 2020.

After the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquakes, the Sumner Road was badly damaged, with tonnes of rock falling on the road. A massive repair project took place from 2015/2016 to 2019, and the original 19th century portion of the road, from Lyttelton to the start of the 1916 route, was monitored by an archaeologist. Excavations for the repairs of the road and retaining walls exposed larger sections of infilling using crushed and whole red scoria rock. Given the historic references to the infilling of gullies, it seems likely that locally sourced rock, much of it likely from the blasting of the rock for the roadway, was used for this purpose.

Rocks on the road as seen during a site visit before the repair works in 2016. Image: K. Webb.

The excavation behind one of the 20th century retaining walls. The red scoria fill recorded in this area is visible on the left and across the excavation area. Image: M. Hickey.

Interestingly, at least two drains constructed within the 19th century portion of Sumner Road had been constructed with locally cut and shaped red scoria blocks. Supporting this are newspapers references, including one mentioning the services of a mason to repair a drain after it was damaged by a cart (Press, 10/4/1872: 3). The use of this material is not unusual within the context of Lyttelton, as we have also found that an early drain (built in 1857) located within the Gaol complex was also constructed of red scoria. The drains found on Sumner Road were square with large red scoria blocks cut on the inner, top, base and side surfaces, but left uncut and rough on the outer sides. The use of these drains was evident as the base stones had well worn grooves cut by the water trickling through over time.

Looking down on the top of one of the drains. Image: M. Hickey.

Looking through the remainder of the red scoria drain while still in situ. Image: M. Hickey.

Rockfall remains a risk in some surrounding areas of the Bridle Path, but the path was used by a number of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake as both Sumner Road and the tunnel were closed. Recent works on the path for service renewal exposed a number of different stone and clay based track and fill layers. However, given the popularity and age of the track, the track was subject to many upgrades and repairs over time so these layers could be attributed to any phase of activity occurring in the 19th or 20th century. While we might not have too many subsurface finds that tell us about the settlers who used the track, the track itself is a recorded archaeological site and is a visible reminder of the challenge posed by the Port Hills.

The Bridle Path in 2020. Image: J. Whitmore.

A 20th century culvert with stone and clay fill around, and natural clay beneath. Image: M. Hickey.

By Megan Hickey and Lydia Mearns.

References

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.

Height, J. and Straubel, C.R. eds., 1965. A History of Canterbury. Volume 1: T ed. Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs.

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

New Zealander, 1845-1866. [online] Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/.

Ogilvie, G., 2009. The Port Hills of Christchurch. Christchurch, N.Z.: Philips & King.

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

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