Christchurch City Centre is perfect for exploring – so much to see and do – so close!

This guide of walks has been divided into three sections and contains many interesting and historical features. Together the three walks will take at least two hours, allowing time for brief pauses at various points. However, if you wish to linger longer, shop or dine, you may like to allow more time to do the full circuit.

• City Walk 1 - 45 mins from Cathedral Square to the Museum
• City Walk 2 - 45 mins from the Museum to Victoria Square
• City Walk 3 - 45 mins from Victoria Square to Cathedral Square

Download the City Centre Walks brochure [1218KB free PDF reader] This has a route map included.

City Walk 1

45 mins from Cathedral Square to the Museum

The City Walk begins in Cathedral Square, 1, the focal point of which is the Cathedral itself (built 1864-1904).

There are many interesting memorials inside the Cathedral and a panoramic view of Christchurch can be seen from its tower. In Cathedral Square you should also look for the statue of John Robert Godley (1867), 2, ‘the founder of Canterbury’, and the War Memorial and the Four Ships Court outside the old Chief Post Office (1879).

The walk leaves the Square passing the Edwardian Regent Theatre (1905), 3. One block west of the Square, the walk crosses the Avon River at the Worcester Street bridge (1885), which features ornate iron balustrades. Just before the bridge a statue of the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1917), 4, faces the former Municipal Chambers (1887), 5, now Our City O-Tautahi. This operates as a civic exhibition space and allows you to explore one of our fine Victorian buildings.

The statue of Kate Sheppard beside the chambers was unveiled on September 19 1993 to commemorate New Zealand women being the first in the world to win the right to vote 100 years before.

Over the Worcester Street bridge, you turn left to follow the Avon River upstream. The Canterbury Club (1872), 6, one of the city’s two old-established ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ has a hitching post and gas lamp standard on the footpath. A short distance down Cambridge Terrace by the Hereford Street bridge, the neo Gothic inspired former Library Chambers (1876, 1893, 1923), 7, contrasts with the large modern postal centre and Police Station.

The next bridge over the river is the imposing Bridge of Remembrance (1924), 8, which stands at the end of City Mall, a pedestrian shopping precinct. The city’s ‘Friendship Corner’, 9, where trees represent each of Christchurch’s sister cities, is located next to the bridge. Continue on around the river, past Rhododendron Island, 10, (where last century there was a swimming hole in the river). The white timber Victorian Gothic Church of S. Michael’s (1872), 11, with its detached, older belfry, can be seen across the river. S. Michael’s is the founding parish of the Canterbury Association. It contains the finest collection of Victorian and Edwardian stained glass in Christchurch.

Pleasant walking along the river bank, beneath wonderful old trees will take you across Montreal Street to the Antigua Boat Sheds (1882), 12, the sole survivor of several boating sheds that once stood on the banks of the Avon River. You can hire craft here to boat on the Avon through the Botanic Gardens.

By the Boat Sheds, Cambridge Terrace runs into Rolleston Avenue. The modern buildings of the Christchurch Hospital are across the river. If you wish to visit the Nurses Memorial Chapel (1927/8), 13, the oldest surviving building on the hospital’s site, you should cross the Antigua Street footbridge, walk around the hospital and a short distance up Riccarton Avenue. This diversion will need at least half an hour.

From the Boatsheds, walk up Rolleston Avenue with the Botanic Gardens, 14, on your left. Along the way you will pass statues of three of the Canterbury Superintendents, Fitzgerald, Moorhouse and Rolleston. Soon you will see the grey stone Gothic buildings of the Arts Centre (1876 – 1923),15, (formerly the University of Canterbury) on your right. The main entrance to the Botanic Gardens is adjacent to the entrance to the Canterbury Museum (1870 – 1994), 16. The Museum’s displays cover Canterbury’s natural and human history, and there is a special Antarctic wing. You should also wander through the Arts Centre to appreciate the Gothic buildings grouped around two quadrangles and to enjoy the restaurants and various galleries of arts and crafts which now occupies them.

From here walk east down Worcester Boulevard to the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu. Opened in May 2003 the gallery houses nine galleries with a vibrant programme of national and international exhibitions; two shops, a café and bar. This is where the first section of the walk ends. If your time is limited you can return to the starting point of the walk down the Worcester Boulevard or board the tram.

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City Walk 2

45 mins from the Museum to Victoria Square

Continue north up Rolleston Avenue. Soon on your left, past the Museum, are the buildings of Christ’s College, 17, the city’s oldest school. The Armagh Street bridge, another bridge with attractive iron baulstrades, crosses the Avon River into North Hagley Park, 18, which has woodlands and playing fields. The broad acres of the two parts of Hagley Park provide scope for all sorts of sporting and recreational activities.

The walk turns right into Armagh Street where you soon reach the southern edge of Cranmer Square, 19, a grassy, tree surrounded open space. Cranmer Square contains a number of former Education buildings: to the South the former Girls' High School, 20, and to the north and west the former Normal School, 21, Teachers' Training College, former St Margaret's College and Cathedral Grammar School which is still in operation today. Walk across Cranmer Square to Chester Street. On the corner of Chester and Durham Streets is the city’s oldest stone church, Durham Street Methodist (1864), 22. Opposite the church is the city’s new court building.

Turn right down Durham Street and on the next corner you will find the buildings that many regard as Christchurch’s finest, the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings (1858 – 1865), 23.

It’s worth walking right around these buildings, which combine stone and wood in a picturesque whole. From the river side of the Buildings you can see the city’s Public Library, 24, across the river. The Armagh Street bridge leads you into Victoria Square, 25. This beautifully designed open space was once the commercial heart of Christchurch and known as Market Square.

In the Square there are statues of Queen Victoria (1903) and Captain Cook (1932). The Square also features the oldest of the city’s iron bridges and a stone ramp leading down to the river which was once used for watering horses. Across the bridge is the floral clock.

On the north side of Victoria Square, across the bridge, are the Parkroyal Hotel (1984 – 1988), 26, and the Christchurch Convention Centre and Town Hall (1966 – 1972), 27, with the auditorium, theatre and conference facilities. The Town Hall is open throughout the day.

The second section of the walk ends in Victoria Square. Cathedral Square is a short distance down Colombo Street from the corner of the Square where the Queen Victoria Statue stands.

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City Walk 3

45 mins from Victoria Square to Cathedral Square

The third section of the walk leaves Victoria Square along a gently winding stretch of Oxford Terrace by the Oxford Tavern, 28. Further down Oxford Terrace on the opposite bank is the very fine Edmonds Band Rotunda (1929), 29. Beyond the Manchester Street bridge, the Avon flows between two stately rows of tall poplar trees. This reach of the river is lovely at all times of the year, but especially attractive in autumn.

At the Madras Street corner, where the poplar trees end, a stone clock tower, the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church (1886), 30, and an interesting row of two-storey timber Victorian town houses, 31, on Chester Street form an attractive precinct. Turn right down Madras Street (against the one-way flow of traffic) and walk two short blocks to Latimer Square, 32, the last of the central city’s larger open spaces you will visit.

On the Southern side of the Square is the stone St John’s Church (1865), 33, and also the appealing Occidental Hotel (1865), 34, which began its life as an establishment where the male members of the Christchurch Club (1862), 35, boarded their families while they stayed at the Club. The Club itself, on the Worcester Street corner, is one of Christchurch’s older timber buildings.

The walk leaves Latimer Square down Worcester Street, beside the Christchurch Club. Heading towards the back of the Cathedral at the Manchester Street corner you pass the stone Gothic former Trinity Congregational Church (1874), 36. Trinity’s neighbour on Worcester Street is the State Insurance Building (1937), 37.

These two buildings, together with the former Government Buildings (1911), 38, and the Press Building (1909), 39, stand on opposite corners as you re-enter Cathedral Square.

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