One of the most important events in Canterbury’s provincial history occurred in 1867 with the completion of the Lyttelton - Christchurch rail tunnel. This was a crucial year in the history of the port because to be economically viable the port needed to be easily accessible to its hinterland: Christchurch and the Canterbury Plains.
After three year’s debate and investigation by W.S. Moorhouse; the Superintendent of Canterbury, work commenced on the tunnel on 17th July 1861. This was a pioneering achievement because not only was it the longest tunnel proposed in New Zealand but it was the first in the world to be driven through the wall of an ancient volcano.
Cornwall Road was once known as ‘Jack’s Hill’. This was a very apt description as this is one of the steepest streets in Lyttelton. It was called ‘Jack’ after the many miners from Cornwall who lived in this area while excavating the Lyttelton rail tunnel (1861-1867.) The Cornish Tin mines had closed down and many unemployed miners emigrated to start a new life in New Zealand.
These miners spent a hard day’s work constructing a tunnel that was a huge achievement under the conditions of that era. The miners worked three shifts a day moving 14 feet a week. The faces were prepared with ‘gads’, which were long chisels and picks that hammered into the rocks along with charges of gunpowder. Ventilation and drainage were tricky issues, 4 fans driven by a steam engine worked ventilation for the miners and an iron shield on runners protected miners from the water that had extinguished their candles and caused their ‘ waterproof’ cartridges to misfire. Work was complicated when a shaft at the end of London Street tapped an artesian spring and 60,000 gallons of water was pumped out each day. Having overcome all these hazards the miners would have been jubilant when after 6 years of work, on 28th May 1867, they broke through the north and south faces of the port hills to complete the tunnel, The first experimental train ran through on 18th November and the first passenger train took just 6 ½ minutes to travel the rail tunnel’s length on 9th December 1867!
Not many of the Cornish miners would have stayed in Lyttelton once the railway tunnel had been completed. A few stayed to work in the quarries such as the Old Quarry above Cornwall Road on original Crown land formerly designated as a botanic reserve. (This reserve –RS 193 is accessible by footpath from the top of Cornwall Rd). Most of the Cornish miners would have left their Lyttelton cottages to seek their fortunes in the gold fields of Otago and the West coast or in other mining activities. The New Zealand economy in 1871 saw more men employed in mining than all New Zealand’s newly founded industries: clothing; textile; breweries; flour mills; saw mills; meat processing plants and agricultural machinery put together!
These workers cottages were set in large (a quarter acre) productive cottage gardens that kept miners and their families just about self-sufficient all year round. These dwellings are now rare because a lot were adapted to accommodate growing families; with the usual kiwi ingenuity they were extended with the birth of new children and over the last 140 years most have been builton until they are beyond recognition. Also, more recently, as land prices increased these simple historic cottages were not valued and cared for but neglected and allowed to become derelict and then were demolished; the fruitful cottage garden land subdivided and newer, larger villas and town houses built in their place.
However a small group survive, most of them sympathetically extended at the rear of the original ‘two cell dwelling’. These two cell cottages were ‘one step up’ from the one room ‘V hut’ because they had two rooms: one for living and the other for sleeping. The steeply pitched roof of these cottages often provided an attic bedroom for children. Some were immediately extended at the rear to become double or even triple gable cottages. They originally all had the outside ‘dunny’ and washhouse that eventually became incorporated into the house by lean-to extensions for separate kitchens and bathrooms.
A dozen Cornish miners cottages can still be found in Lyttelton. Numbers 7, 8, 12, 15, and 20 Cornwall Road together with numbers 41, 43a and 47a Exeter Street form a cluster in the general area near the bottom of Cornwall Road. Number 43 Cornwall Road and also 10 Somes Rd are in the area to the top of Cornwall Road. Others exist at number 2,and 14 Exeter Street. They are much-loved historic cottages valued by their owners for their cosy and ‘characterful’ qualities with original features preserved having been protected from the 1960’s and 1970’s trends in D.I.Y modernisation.
