Evolution of the 'long' jetty in Governors Bay...

The locally-acknowledged date for the construction of the Sandy Bay and the Governors Bay jetties was 1883. This puzzled me. Why would two public jetties be built in such close proximity in the same year? Some detective work at Archives NZ unravelled the story. With the jetty on the beach at Sandy Bay proving inadequate there was much local lobbying for a better-sited jetty. A determining factor was depth of water - but self-interest meant that vocal locals also agitated for a jetty proximate to their property.


At a meeting in March 1874, three sites were considered: (A) the location of the current long jetty; (B) on the beach in Sandy Bay; and (C) where the remains of the Sandy Bay Point jetty can still be seen.

Documents from Archives NZ    

The decision having been made in favour of 'Dyers Point', tenders were called for construction in July  1874 and by November the Press was advertising land for sale ‘situated close to the New Jetty’. The structure was modest but sufficient to accommodate reasonably sized boats at high tide. Tourism took off - just see how crowded Mullogh is in the photo below...

Mullogh at Governors Bay jetty, no date (Coral Atkinson postcard collection)

However the relative shallowness of the water at Dyers Point, combined with ongoing harbour silting, made the Dyers Point jetty less and less viable. In 1883 a decision was made to build a second jetty at Percivals Point (C on the diagram above). (See another post for the story of this jetty). So now the Harbour Board had two jetties to maintain in Governors Bay.

In 1910 the Harbour Board decided to close the 'upper wharf' as an economy measure.

A petition signed by most bay residents argued that the wharf’s accessibility by road made it much handier for visitors and less expensive for commerce than the ‘lower jetty’. The locals not only wanted to retain the upper wharf but also to lengthen it and dredge an approaching channel. The costs would be covered by a toll levied on visitors using the jetty. In October 1912 the Harbour Improvement Committee recommended that the upper Governors Bay jetty be extended so that launches could use it, regardless of the state of the tide. (Head of the Harbour, 197)

By January 1913 the piles had been driven out for a distance of 600ft and by June the first 900ft were almost completed. It was only a temporary fix however. In December 1927 residents were again petitioning the Lyttelton Harbour Board for better access to the Bay by water. The options were to lengthen the jetty yet again and/or to dredge a channel to the jetty. The Harbour Board was reluctant to consider either option but work must have occurred in the late 1920s to extend the jetty to its final 250 yards. After inspections in 1993 and 1994 revealed cause for concern about its condition, 20 new piles were driven under the jetty in 1997. The pile driver was mounted on a flat barge made from mussel buoys. At the sea end of the jetty the 10-metre long piles went 4 metres into the silt. 

Following the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010/11 the jetty was deemed unsafe and cordoned off. It is currently awaiting a rebuild under the auspices of the Governors Bay Restoration Trust.

Wharf at Governors Bay c. 1905, J Kinsey photograph, Canterbury Museum

Steam pinnace Canterbury at Governors Bay c. 1905, FC Bishop collection, Canterbury Museum

Road to old wharf Governors Bay, C Becken, Canterbury Museum

Governors Bay c. 1969 (Alison Hussey)

Governors Bay jetty, 2009 (Jane Robertson)