Bryndwr Railway Station
This was the site of the Bryndwr Railway Station and there is no sign of the station that closed in 1977. The building here now has Elmwood on it. I love the train here and it a shame you can't sit in it for a pretend ride or drive. This is Norman the green engine. The Cache is hidden behind the engine where there is a sign.
Bryndwr, meaning 'hillside by water' (from Bryn "hillside" + dŵr "by water"), and probably named for the slopes beside the Wairarapa and Wai iti streams which run through the suburb, is one of the few places in New Zealand with a name of Welsh origin. It was given this name by Charles Alured Jeffreys, (1821–1904) of Glandyfi, Machynlleth, Wales. He farmed this area after being given 100 acres (40 ha) freehold by his father-in-law Thomas Parr in 1851, who was granted Rural Section 188 from the Canterbury Association. Jeffreys also took a further 100 acres (40 ha) leasehold. He and his wife Clara Ellen emigrated on the Tasmania arriving in Lyttelton in 1853.
His land, sections 503 and 504, was known as Bryndwr Farm, Fendall Town. Jeffreys subdivided the land, selling 180 lots at auction as the "valuable suburb of Bryndwr", in 1880. Many streets he named in the area have Welsh associations including Jeffreys, Plynlimon, Penhelig, Glandovey (Anglicised over time from Glandyfi), Idris, (from Cadair Idris),Snowdon, Garreg, and Bryndwr Road. Jeffreys, his wife and daughter returned to Glandyfi castle after his elder brother, Edward, died in 1888.
A 1922 map of Christchurch shows "Bryndwr Station" railway station north of the intersection of Normans Road and Wairakei Road (then Wairarapa Road). The farm owned by William Warner of Warner's Hotel in the Norman's Road area of Bryndwr was subdivided, and the Normans Road shops included the Warner farmhouse. In about 1957, the Roper's Foodmarket in this group of shops was designed by local architect Paul Pascoe.
Land was further subdivided during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and these streets were laid out in the sinuous nested form of the Radburn design. The subdivision included the land that was the Bateman farm, on Greers Road, and extended between what is now Memorial Avenue, and Wairakei Road, and north of Wairakei Road including around the Greer homestea built in 1878, at what is now 302 Greers Road, and land owned by Christ's College, Christchurch. Street names from this period of subdivision included notable politicians (Attlee, Truman, Evatt, Eden), Otago landmarks (Earnslaw, Hollyford, Hooker, Aorangi, Lyall, Sealy), names associated with Christ's College, (Blanch, Bourne, Condell, Hudson, Flower, Harris, Merton, Moreland, Richards, Tothill), and HMS Bounty, (Bounty, Resolution, Pitcairn, Christian). The houses along Wayside Avenue included exhibition homes