Visit most coastal spots in New Zealand and chances are somebody else has been there before you.
Take New Brighton for instance, the first Europeans Elizabeth and William Walker settled the area in the 1850’s and ekked out an existence fishing and subsistence cropping.
However not all history starts with visitors from Great Britain, the Maori were present much earlier.
For a family like the Walkers, inhabiting the coastal landscape of New Brighton was a challenge in itself and the nearest civilization nothing like our current 18 minute car ride to the city centre, it took considerable effort to negotiate the sand dunes and swamp on foot or horseback before the advent of the stage coach.
There was a brief period where the quickest journey was courtesy of the steamer ‘Brighton’ able to carry up to 175 passengers, and chug down the meandering Avon through flocks of ducks.
About the same time as the opening up of the pier, the completion of the Pages Rd bridge and tram system finally connected this isolated sea-side settlement with the rest of the world, despite the opposition of land-owners angry at the pittance alleged paid to them for the necessary bits of land, and one Mrs McKnight, resorted to sitting on the tram tracks waving sharp knitting needles in a menacing fashion.
A collection of bach-type dwellings began emerge, one or two squatter type, and others on newly purchased plots of sand land.
Many who built in New Brighton in the late 1880’s were holiday-makers, or those wishing to avoid notoriety by conducting their “affairs” out of the city lime -light.
A popular joke was: “Are you married or do you live in New Brighton ?”
Young virile men and women looking to cohort around the city, were told: “no sex here please, go out to the dunes”.
In the late 1880’s New Brighton / Burwood was serviced by two licensed premises — the New Brighton (built 1870) and Bower hotels, so drunk and disorderly patrons wandering the vicinity was not an unusual sight with no local policeman to curb these activities.
As history entered into the 1900’s, a new phase development emerged and the local population topped 1,000. Rather than remaining tarnished with a seedy reputation, New Brighton began to tout itself as the foremost seaside destination in Christchurch, and when Sumner claimed the same, the battle was on.
Each resorted to a series of grand ideas to push themselves as the atypical Antipodean version of Brighton in England.
A previous post featured the attempt to create a New Brighton version of Sumner’s Cave Rock from a few hundred tonne of concrete. Luckily that proposal sunk along with a wild life sanctuary and a Butlins type holiday camp.
Yet there were attractions and one was the great hunting opportunities, pheasant, and quail and sometimes a typically English hunt where dogs ran after the blood trail of rabbit. If one got sick of collecting shell-fish and trying to net sole or flounder, an alternative option was to pop across to the New Brighton Hotel for a plate of jellied eel or whitebait.
One attraction for tram riders was Bligh’s Gardens offering 38 acres of flower beds, and picnic areas, and variety of fruit trees. In the central and north Brighton could be found cafes, a hotel and upmarket boarding houses.
New Brighton became a destination for those wishing to get out the smog, take a walk on the pier, sip a fine cup of Ceylon, and vaguely think about a quick cuddle in the sand hills.
Promotional brochures painted New Brighton as being the “lungs of Christchurch” and having a “salubrious climate evidenced by the health of the school children, and is a sure indication of the purifying properties of the sea breezes from Pegasus Bay. The stimulating and regenerating properties of surf bathing are so well known and appreciated, that during the season thousands of people of all ages may be seen disporting themselves in the breakers. Mixed bathing is allowed, and is largely indulged in.”
Daring was in, and a popular way of cementing a new relationship was a trip to the coastal suburb for the day or weekend.
Whatever reason you took the tram to the sea-side, it was for some kind of fun.
In 1909 trams carried many of the 14,000 people one January day to a New Year gala around the foreshore.
The future of New Brighton is about fun, well-being and recreation, and slowly but surely the good times are returning in 2021.
Last month the He Puna Taimoana hot pools recorded its second biggest month since opening in May last year and the expectations the numbers will increase leading into winter.