Victoria Street is a road in the central city of

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

, New Zealand. It runs from the intersection of Papanui Road and Bealey Avenue in the north-west, and terminates in the south-east at the corner of Kilmore and Durham Streets. One of the two diagonal roads that break the original grid plan (the other being High Street), it was very important in the development of Christchurch.

Geography

Victoria St runs for roughly from north-west to south-east towards the centre of Christchurch. It stops at Kilmore and Durham Streets, which form the boundary of Victoria Square. There is a slight deviation in direction at the intersection of Salisbury and Montreal Streets. Originally, the street began at the intersection of

Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...

and Armagh Streets and went through what is now Victoria Square, including a crossing of the Avon River on what is now known as the Hamish Hay Bridge.

History

Victoria Square is one of four squares located in the Christchurch Central City. It is located just north-west from its centre, Cathedral Square. The square was initially bisected by Whately Road (named after the

Archbishop of Dublin The Archbishop of Dublin () is an Episcopal polity, archiepiscopal title which takes its name from Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Since the Reformation in Ireland, Reformation, there have been parallel apostolic successions to the title: ...

Richard Whately Richard Whately (1 February 1787 – 8 October 1863) was an English academic, rhetorician, logician, philosopher, economist, and theologian who also served as a reforming Archbishop of Dublin (Church of Ireland), Church of Ireland Archbishop of ...

, who was a member of the

Canterbury Association The Canterbury Association was formed in 1848 in England by Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), members of parliament, Peerage of the United Kingdom, peers, and Anglicanism, Anglican church leaders, to establish a colony in New Zealand. The se ...

), later renamed Victoria Street, and this formed a major route to the north towards

Papanui Papanui is a major suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand. It is situated five kilometres to the northwest of the Christchurch Central City, city centre. Papanui has a population of 3,645 consisting predominantly of Pākehā (New Zeala ...

and beyond. Victoria Street was stopped in 1988 at Kilmore and Durham Streets under much public protest when the Parkroyal Hotel, the later

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, was built. When the Crowne Plaza was demolished in 2011/12 following the earthquakes, some were calling for the road to be restored; this included central city business leader Paul Lonsdale. This caused quite a storm of opposition, and soon after, the idea of restoring the road was dropped.

Notes

References

*{{cite book , last = Ansley , first = Bruce , title = Christchurch Heritage: A celebration of lost buildings & streetscapes , year = 2011 , publisher =

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, location = Auckland, New Zealand , isbn = 978-1-86979-863-5 Streets in Christchurch Christchurch Central City