Hagley Park—as rich in history as its British namesake

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 16

Hagley Park—as rich in history as its British namesake

By

PHYLLIS KERR-NORTH

Newly come to live in Christchurch from my beloved green and pleasant South Canterbury, I am full of admiration for the City Fathers in past and present generations who have made provision for the green belts in and around this "garden city of the plains.” Especially do I applaud that clause which they wrote into the Canterbury Reserves Ordinance in 1858 (“enacted by the Superintendent of the Province with the advice and consent of the Provincial Council”) which “reserves for all time as a Public Park the land commonly known as ‘Hagley Park’.” I did not know, shame on me, why and how this “Hagley Park” was so named; I felt it was certainly time I found out. It was a little comforting to discover that I was not alone in my ignorance.

Most New Zealanders know erf this beautiful place and remember it by its huge trees of many shades of green forming canopies for pedestrian and for motorist; by its copsewoods; by its broad expanses <rf grassland; and by its historic specimen trees. They remember it, too, by the areas where sportsmen of many allegiances pit their ability against one another on its courts and courses, on its fields and pitches, its grounds and greens, in all seasons of the year.

Once he had seen them no New Zealander could forget the Botanic Gardens, either. The piece of land was originally called the “Government Domain,” and was set within the 500 acres which were surveyed as the “Public Park.”

I did not know, until I was recently told, that the Gardens, laid out in that area which is almost bounded by a horsehoe bend in the river, are recognised as equal to any in the Southern Hemisphere, and are rated among the top 10 in the world. Christchurch must be very proud of its Curators, past and present. I wondered if this Hagley Park bore any resemblance to its namesake in England, and how it came to be just where it is. It is common knowledge, of course, that in 1842, well before Wakefield and Godley and their ilk thought out a plan to form a Church of England colony in New Zealand resulting in the birth of the Canterbury Association, the Deans brothers had arrived in Canterbury. They bought Maori land and settled on what they called “Riccarton.”

They came to it up the river, then called "Teonotopo” or the “Potoringamuto,” in a whale-boat as far as “The Bricks” near the present Barbadoes Street Bridge. From there a Maori canoe took them to a bend in the river from where their footsteps lined out the Riccarton Road. ■’ It had been an arduous journey through thick, overhanging vegetation,

and the canoe had to be manhandled by pulling on the flax, niggerheads, and raupo. Leaving the river, they made a path through the “dense entanglement of tutu, tussock, Spaniard, and other native growth nearly breast high”; and Riccarton became the Deans’s family home. Eight years later they saw the arrival of the First Four Ships and the beginning cf the Canterbury Settlement. Though stories of land sales from Maori to white man are legion, suffice it to say that arrangements were made by the CanterburyAssociation and the Crown for land, two and a half million acres of it, to become available for settlement.

The Association had instructed its surveyors to choose, as the site of the capital,” a block of land of about 1000 acres and to

lay out lines for principal streets and squares, sites for public buildings, and land for parks.” Some surveyors thought Woolston would be a better city centre than the one chosen — it was not a swamp. But with Captain Thomas, the chief surveyor, urging his underlings an, the squares and streets were laid out as they are today. I read in the Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute that William Deans, envisaging a future city encircling him, requested of the Provincial Council that the new town should not be too near their Riccarton sheep station. Respecting his wishes, the green belt was lined out “on the west side of the town and between the station and the town buildings.”

The streets and squares were named from various British bishoprics, and drawn at random out of a hat. But it was a different matter when the name for the large town reserve was to be decided. Out of compliment to Lord Lyttelton, who was Chairman of the Canterbury Association, it was named Hagley Park, and so bears the name of his country seat in Worcestershire.

The Lytteltons, famous in law and learning, settled here in 1864. One of them, a judge, wrote what was to become a standard authority on real estate: “the most famous law book in the English language.” The fourth baron was a brother-in-law of W. E. Gladstone, and it is after him that the Port of Lyttelton was named. As Chairman of the Canterbury Association he would receive reports from the Colony. Some must have made him think twice; “The body politic of Lyttelton is in a very unsound state of health,” “Lyttelton is indignant but calm.”

He was a splendid cricketer, as were his sons. In 1868, he visited Canterbury and a cricket match was held in his honour on Hagley Park, “where,” he wrote home, “my son much astonished the colonists by getting more than a hundred runs.”

Hagley Hall, the Lyttelton home, in Worcestershire, was built in the eighteenth century. It was “a magnificent creation; a product of craftsmanship and built by a docile executant —a temple for the glorification of man.” Fortunately, that Lord Lyttelton, in planning the park around his Hagley Hall, did it in contradistinction to the usual formal gardens of other great estates and pioneered the “natural wilderness” idea — landscape gardening on a grand scale.

He was not content with nature’s grandeur though, and his architects built in the park a Palladium bridge, a rotunda, a Temple of Thesus, an lonic Portico, and numerous other, in his view, “objects d’art.” In spite of all that, and of the fact that Lord Lyttelton could not resist “Gothic Ruins” being included in the objects d’art, the park is described by Arther Mees as “a glorious park with, rolling slopes.” Christchurch’s Hagley has no rolling slopes but its beauty is no less apparent; and though it has a rotunda, it can well do without a Temple of Thesus, etc. On April 3, 1852, the Lyttelton “Times” carried

a notice announcing that "a cricket match will be played on Hagley Park between married and single men of the settlement.” The pitch, cleared of tussock and Spaniard, must have been barely playable. The out-field must have presented great difficulty to long-on and long-off, for I read that “a subscription was taken up during the afternoon to make a proper ground and fence it; the place being rough in the extreme and very difficult to play on: £3O was collected.” The Land Ofice must have been sympathetic for the Lyttelton “Times” of April 20 reported that, “as a start to breaking in the rough land covered in tussock, taramea, and other native vegetation, 445 acres is available for depasturing sheep at a rental of 2 shillings and 7 pence an acre.”

An advertisement in a later edition of the Lyttelton “Times” told the public that races would be held on Easter Monday, 1852. Then, in December of the same year, there was an account of that celebrated and sad farewell breakfast to Mr and Mrs Godley in a marquee in the park. With the long grass being scythed and haystacks a common sight, Maoris saw the busy white man doing strange things to the land over which they had formerly ranged at will. But Chief Surveyor Cass was watching their interests, and he appealed successfully to the Provincial Council in 1858 to have a reserve for them set aside in the park.

Two years later Maoris, through the Rev. J. W Stack, requested the Council to allow them to build a Hostel on the reserve. This was refused; and, strangely enough, so was the building of another “Hostel” on the same site in 1879, a Christchurch residence for the Gover-nor-General. Later, the reserve was exchanged for land elsewhere.

With the formation in 1864 of the Canterbury Acclimitisation and Horticultural Society, development of Hagley Park went ahead, and in the first 13 years of its oper-

ations 620,000 trees were planted. Soil patterns were irregular: shingle beds and heavy soil areas beside each other, the norm. A swamp land designated a lake in early plans become Victoria Lake in 1897.

The planting of the “Albert Edward” oak in 1863 is regarded as the beginning of the creation of the Botanic Gardens; and as I walked about this huge tree and stood under its enormous canopy I thought how much the empty landscape — empty except for a few cabbage trees and a remnant of native bush — must have appalled those lately come from well-wooded England. They determined a change would come over the emptiness and set about doing just that.

Their actions were approved, for plants were offered from friends and nurseries near and far. A gardener in Akaroa supplied native plants for six shillings a hundred. Dr Von Haast presented seeds he had had sent to him from Kew Gardens, and individuals gave seeds from treasured homegrown plants. Enoch Barker took them all into his care as the first Provincial Council gardener. The first trees planted — oaks, elms and sycamores — arrived from England as seedlings. Those shipped in a Wardian case travelled well. It was a glass case in which transpiration was minimal, and thousands of trees and plants were transported in such cases round the world.

Cash-books give some idea of the enormous amount of planting by successive gardeners over the years.. The cost of stock, even in 1935, was quite an item for the Christchurch Domains Board: 1000 snowdrops cost £5, 600 chionodoxa were £3, 1175 tulips cost £l7 12s. The Board had to pay £4 for a Magnolia Stellata, and other trees and shrubs were equally costly; but 185.4 d wa,s the price of a case of Plume petrol (and that would be four gallons). A draught gelding was bought for £45, and I was amused to find it recorded under “contingencies” in the cash-book.