Church Bay/Kaioruru #4: The jetty

Church Bay wharf during the Hocking Trophy or Church Bay Race, 1950s. Church Bay Race (Marion Coxon)

The Church Bay jetty made headlines in 2016 when locals completed a marathon post-earthquake repair of the damaged structure. The jetty suffered extensive damage during the 2010/11 earthquakes both to horizontal beams and vertical piles.  It was closed in 2011 and risked not being repaired by the cash-strapped City Council. The local community resolved to take the project in hand and restore an important facility. In the spirit of partnership the Council offered to pay for the materials and about 40 locals volunteered a collective 1000 hours of expertise and labour, saving about $65,000 in labour costs. In December 2016 the jetty was proudly reopened.

Three photos of the post-earthquake repair in progress, 2016. Photos acquired from Peter Harding via Philippa Drayton. (I am not sure who the photographer was and would love to know)

Prior to 1907 Church Bay had only private jetties, mostly servicing the ships' ballast industry. A report from July 30 1906 indicated that a public jetty could be built at Church Bay for about £120.  In October a letter from Lyttelton Harbour Board member Robert Anderson to the Mount Herbert County Council requested the chairman’s signature to a petition in favour of a landing stage at Church Bay.[3]

By December the wood was being prepared and in January 1907 the Press reported that “a small jetty at Church Bay, with 3ft of water at low tide at the head, had been constructed during the month.”[4] This made life much easier for the Hunter family who could now come and go in their own boat or in visiting launches rather than always having to travel to neighbouring jetties. The younger Hunter children travelled daily to school in Lyttelton, picked up at the jetty by Andrew Anderson's Matariki. In the late 1920s R.W. Godfrey and Johnny Hay pick and shoveled a track to the Church Bay jetty, running down the eastern side of the bay and wide enough to carry vehicles. Godfrey used to take wool bales down by draught horse and sledge.[5]

Church Bay jetty plans, Archives NZ/ECan MA50C/1/428

Church Bay jetty 1925 (Hunter archive)

Photo accompanying an application from A.J.Marriott to build a slipway (marked in pen), 1949. Jetty to the right and early baches  above the track to the jetty. 
Lyttelton Harbour Board, Archives NZ/ECan, XBAH-A002-395

Gordon Ogilvie points out that Church Bay’s population was given as eight in 1878, 16 in 1881, 12 in 1906 and five in 1911. Church Bay and Diamond Harbour, with their steeper frontages to the sea, were not favoured for early settlement to the extent that Purau or Charteris Bay were. However, during the Depression of the 1930s unemployed men were put to work building a lower coast road that would provide easier access round the southern bays than the high old stock route. Tent camps were established at Purau and Diamond Harbour while a third was proposed between Church Bay and Charteris Bay. Once the road was completed the camps were dismantled and men were brought daily by ferry to work on the metalling of the road. This was virtually completed by March 1933. 

Construction of Church Bay gully bridge, 1931 (DHHA collection)

Church Bay jetty c.1930s? The road constructed during the Depression is visible as is the
  Hunter home above the road. (Hunter archive)

The improved, scenic access around the southern bays meant an increased demand for sections.  Oliver Hunter subdivided some of his land below, and later above, the new road. In 1956 the land on the headland to the east of the bay was subdivided though it took decades for any significant development to occur. The new 'Marine Drive' also reduced the dependence of both locals and visitors on the ferries, meaning that the relatively newly-built Church Bay jetty was always patronized more by privately-owned pleasure boats than by any sort of public launch service. However Church Bay did remain an ‘excursion’ destination with groups from Christchurch enjoying weekend picnics on the sandy beach.  

Press 26 April 1933

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My thanks to Mary Harrison for generous access to the Oliver Hunter archive.

[1] Lyttelton Times, 16 November 1859

[2] Support for application to erect a jetty at Church Bay. Archives NZ/ECan, CAAR CH287 19946 Box CP 229

[3] Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser 9 October 1906

[4] Press, 9 February 1907. By 1936 Church Bay had the only wharf outside that at Diamond Harbour able to be be used at all tides

[5] Mary Stapylton-Smith, From Adderley to Bradley, Friends of the Diamond Harbour Library, 2009, 264