Akaroa Historical Overview - Christchurch City Council

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SNAPSHOT OF AKAROA IN 1950
Descriptions of the town in the years after 1900 document its gradual creep up into the
hills. “All of Akaroa that does not lie at the edge of the sea is gently traveling up the soft
grassy ridges of the harbour basin” one journalist noted in 1908. 97 But the significant
growth of the town onto the hill slopes and ridge lines came after 1950. By that year,
building had only just started on the first major post-war subdivision, between Watson
and Muter Streets. The relatively small change in the extent of the town in the first half
of the 20 th century reflected the small growth of the town’s population through those
years.
References to the town's earliest European role as a productive French settlement were
still visible in some of the mature trees but these were now part of rich amalgam of
plantings that included Chinese market gardens, a Government experimental orchard,
fashionable sea-side plantings, greater use of native species in public landscapes and
growing tracts of regenerating bush on the hill slopes.
Many of the properties had acquired a landmark quality within the town by virtue of
their particular plantings, e.g. The Poplars on Rue Lavaud, The Maples at 158 Rue Jolie
and The Willows on Rue Lavaud, while new street names e.g. Walnut Avenue and the
more recent Kowhai Grove directly referenced plantings in their vicinity.
By 1950 the town's public open spaces had been significantly refashioned as memorial
fabric was added and commemorative activities were played out in the town. The War
Memorial was the most conspicuous example of this new fabric. New events were
inscribed into the towns streets and planted into the landscape while other historic
elements, like the grounds of the French Cemetery were erased, or in the case of some of
the town's early memorial trees, were removed, died or were forgotten.
Some larger new buildings appeared in the town through these years: the Metropole and
Madeira Hotels, the new hospital, school buildings on three sites and the butter factory
near the base of Daly’s Wharf. But the town remained mostly one of small scale.
Fishing was still an important economic activity, though the original town wharf of 1859,
which had been used by fishing boats until the 1930s, had disappeared by 1950, and the
fishing boats were using the main wharf. Most people were coming and going by road, in
private vehicles and public service cars, all the way from Christchurch after 1951, when
passenger trains were finally withdrawn from the Little River branch line.
97 Otago Witness, 11 November 1908, p. 77
AKAROA HERITAGE OVERVIEW : SECTION 6 YEARS OF STABILITY 1900 TO 1950 PAGE 124