We are not far from seeing the concept plans for the new Pages Rd bridge and out for public submission July-August.
This will be one of the most important constructions for the east in many years and will shape the design of the immediate roads in and around it and possibly incorporate a big welcome sculpture.
As well as pushing the case for our locals, the New Brighton Residents Association occasionally dabbles in a bit of lightweight history about the area and this week featuring local bridges feeding people into the coastal suburb from the time the first European settlement ships arrived in Lyttelton.
Seaview Road or Pages Rd bridge
A route was put through by a private New Brighton Tramway Company. Horse trams ran from Christchurch to New Brighton between 1887 and 1905, after which the Christchurch Tramway Board took over and electrified the line.
At the entrance a gate, reinforcing the Company’s ownership of the structure and collected a toll for a short period before it became a public thoroughfare.
The company’s line was later opened as a public road, Pages Road, named after tramway company director, Joshua Page (1826-1900).
The original Seaview or Pages Road bridge was a flat bridge. It was replaced at the beginning of 1930s by the present high bridge. This was designed by H. F. Toogood, father of one television personality Selwyn “money or the bag” Toogood.
Don’t ask who Selwyn is if under 70 and explain how there were only two television channels and most programmes in black and white.
The hump in the bridge came at the behest of Richard Bedward Owen a tailor and conservationist, known as ‘River Bank Owen’, who argued that boats could come ‘sailing or steaming with the tide’ via the estuary to Christchurch. They never have but there are plans to run wakas to New Brighton via the Otakaro River Corridor (watch this space).
Bower bridge by the Bower Tavern first opened in 1876. The present Bower bridge completed in 1942.
In the 1920s and ‘30s the Inter-City bus service pioneered transport on Wainoni Road, across the Bower bridge and to North New Brighton and New Brighton. This was a private service, very popular, cheap and ran on the smell of an oily rag. It was managed and owned by Intercity Motors with headquarters on Bowhill Road.
This bus company was in competition with the Christchurch Tramway Board’s trams on the Pages Road route and developed into a ‘bus war’. Trams and buses would try to beat each other to pick up the next passenger, a far cry from bus driver shortages and cuts in services today.
South Brighton bridge, Bridge Street
Opened in 1927 it was the result of the work of New Brighton Borough councillor,
Herbert Arundel Glasson. He lived in South Brighton and persuaded fellow residents the idea of paying extra rates to the New Brighton Borough Council providing a South Brighton bridge was built.
The consequent small wooden bridge meant it saved South Brighton residents the long journey up to Central Brighton. The present bridge was opened in 1981.
Estuary bridge
Who has crossed this bridge ?
Nobody as the Estuary Bridge has never been built despite proposals and plans by various people over the years.
James Mawson Stewart (1883-1949) was born at Orange, New South Wales, but came with his family to Christchurch as a small boy. He began his working life as a clerk and later cashier at a venerable institution, the Christchurch Gas Company.
While still a young man, he set up the firm of Stewart Beckett and Co., public accountants going on to become ‘one of the best-known businessmen in Christchurch’
In youth Stewart and his brother, Arthur, bached at New Brighton and retained a commercial interest in the area. During World War I, they were major figures in the South New Brighton Land Company consisting of small shareholders, and the Southshore Syndicate, whose members were substantial businessmen.
The two companies bought the wasteland where the suburb of Southshore now stands and sold at a low price. It was stipulated that every purchaser of section should donate 15 pounds towards the cost of a bridge to take people across the Estuary to Sumner.
Seven hundred pounds was collected, plans drawn up and a track – the future Rockinghorse Road – hacked out of the wilderness.
Midst the battles of trying to find investors, residents on the Redcliffs/Monks Bay side were less enthusiastic about hordes of uncouth travellers coming from New Brighton.
After the war, the company and syndicate were wound up as the momentum waned. James continued to hope that the area might progress and in 1927 attempted to persuade the Government the bridge should be erected at public expense.
The property owners became very disillusioned with the outcome and many sold up and moved on.
The new Pages Road bridge will however be delivering greater amounts of people in and out of the wider coastal area.
The New Brighton Residents has tossed in a few concept ideas for a sculpture signifying entry into our coastal paradise to get the ball rolling.
(Bridge history thanks to former librarian and historian Richard Greenaway).