The Bridle Path Myth

By JC Betts

It’s an established fact that the first four ships arrived at Lyttelton in December 1850, but what happened next? Here are two recent versions:

“... embedded in the soil of Christchurch, as much a part of local history as the pilgrims who had footed it over the Bridle Path from Lyttelton, the men in top hats, the women in crinolines, to found the city”.

Peter Graham, So Brilliantly Clever, Awa Press 2011

“The Bridle Path was the first hurdle for the Canterbury pioneers of 1850 – after three months at sea, they were finally delivered at Lyttelton, only to have to climb up over the Port Hills to reach their promised land. Out of condition, in unsuitable clothing, and burdened with the luggage that wouldn’t fit on the pack horses, they trudged up the steep side of the crater to get their first view of the Canterbury Plains and the site of their new home”.

Pamela Wade, Sunday Star-Times, June 21, 2020.

So the first thing the settlers did on disembarking was parade over the hill, bag and baggage in hand, to – what? In 1850, the only building on the swamp that was to become Christchurch was a surveyors’ hut – they were desperately trying to complete a map of the city before the immigrants’ arrival.

Meanwhile, back in Lyttelton, the Canterbury Association’s Chief Agent John Godley, Chief Surveyor Captain Joseph Thomas and scores of workers had prepared for the pilgrims’ arrival more completely than any other settlement in New Zealand. They had built four Immigration Barracks; all settlers were entitled to at least two weeks’ accommodation. In December 1850 the buildings were overcrowded with the 750 odd arrivals, so the younger men camped or built temporary huts nearby. Many of the cabin passengers – those who had already purchased land, known as ‘colonists’, preferred to stay on board.

There were already 60 temporary houses and two hotels in port. Captain Thomas had supervised the building of a wharf, the Chief Agent’s house, an office, a store, a boathouse, and the start of the Sumner Road over Tapuaeharuru Evans Pass. Then the money ran out.

The Bridle Path was built as a stopgap measure. Charlotte Godley wrote in November 1850:

“Since the money was lent by the Governor for carrying on the works ... about 300 pounds has been devoted to making a bridle path ... which is about two miles shorter than the line of the road, but it will only be meant for horses. When we went up there was still a bit at the top where no one can ride; man and horse must climb over rough stones and rocks, and on the other side the descent is steep enough to make most people prefer walking, too…”.

Charlotte Godley, Letters from Early New Zealand, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1851.

As Lyttelton was the only town in Canterbury it was where the settlers stayed. Most of them would have climbed to the top of the hill to look at the view – and then gone straight back down to the port. Those who continued over to ‘the Plains’ were predominantly the colonists who had purchased land, keen to identify the best locations, but nobody could settle permanently until the sections had been allocated. This happened in late February 1851, after Christchurch’s first building, the Land Office, was completed.

The colonists’ land was distributed in order of payment. The Town Sections along Norwich Quay in Lyttelton, close to the wharf, were the most desirable and were snapped up quickly.

Sites in Christchurch were selected by colonists who had paid for their land and brought supplies and servants with them. For the majority of settlers, immigrants who had assisted passages and needed paid work, the busy port was much more attractive. It was also where the leaders of the community needed to be. This only changed when the railway line between the port and the city was completed in 1867, and around the same time, Christchurch’s population finally became bigger than Lyttelton’s.

From the first, a rivalry existed between the port and ‘the Plains’. The colonists in Christchurch considered Lyttelton to be rough and full of unruly types; Lytteltonians felt that Christchurch was full of snobbish toffs. This enduring attitude made Lyttelton the ideal place to go for people looking for some excitement away from the strait-laced city.

In the early days, ships in Lyttelton Harbour would have to anchor in the stream and smaller vessels would transport their cargoes to the wharf or over the Sumner Bar – it wasn’t possible to take all the luggage over the Bridle Path, even if packhorses had been available, and horses or any livestock were pretty scarce in Canterbury in 1850.

So where did this enduring Bridle Path myth come from? The responsibility lies with the 1950 Centenary celebrations. One of the most striking events was a procession of pilgrims’ descendants walking over the Bridle Path dressed in their idea of authentic Victorian costume (Research shows that the crinoline made its first appearance in 1858. Top hats seem unlikely.)

Somehow, photographs and illustrations from the 1950 celebrations have lodged in the collective mind. However unlikely, the idea of hundreds of stalwart settlers disembarking and immediately marching over the hill somehow stuck and became accepted as truth. As a result, the seminal importance of Lyttelton as the founding settlement and population centre of Canterbury for its first 20 years has been forgotten.