TOW PATHS AND CANALS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 5 August 1929, Page 5

TOW PATHS AND CANALS

BANKS OF THE AVON AND HEATHCOTE “Hill View” writes as follows to the “Christchurch Times” : When Captain Thomas came down to Canterbury from Wellington with his assistant surveyors to plan out and subdivide the land about Christchurch and district, they came to a. land covered with a heavy growth of flax, toi toi, nigger heads and rushes in the low-lying parts of the country, and with tutu and manuka scrub on the river terraces. Great stretches of tussock-cov-ered land stretched far out into the country from the coast-line. They gave their attention to the survey of the land near the intended towns, Lyttelton and Christchurch, with roads leading out into the near-by country districts. As a means of reaching the sea coast by way of Sumner and round to Lyttelton, provision was made for canals linking up the Styx with the Avon through the Marshland district. This canal reserve joins the Avon, in the neighbourhood of Shirley. The Canal Reserve which runs from the Avon at Cowlishaw’s Corner to the Estuary is well known, but, another one, wTiich ran from the Halswell River across the old Cashmere swamp to the Heathcote at the old Cashmere homestead, is not so well known. The purpose of these canals was to provide a waterway for the barges which it was thought might be used to bring the produce from the country districts, ns is slid done in England to some extent. The tow path reserves on both banks of the Avon from near the Fendalton Bridge right down to the Estuary at New Brighton were for the horses which were to draw the barges down the Avon. The tow path starts on the banks of the Heathcote near the old Cashmere Homestead Bridge at Bradbury’s nursery. The canal reserves were made wide enough to provide for tow paths on each bank, so that the barges coming from Halswell could continue their way down the Heathcote to the Ferry Bridge, and so to the Estuary. The other canal reserves from the Styx and the Avon, and from the Avon to the Sumner Estuary, were for the same pur» pose. The tow paths on. the Avon did not extend beyond the Fendalton Bridge. The tow path reserves were twenty-five feet, wide measured from high water mark. This applied to both the Avon and the Heathcote, as both are affected by the tides.