C) Historic Library and Firestation

If you return to the corner of Oxford Street and Sumner Road you will be at the site of our next historic buildings which used to sit opposite each other (pictured above).

Lyttelton’s library was the oldest in the Canterbury region and originally established in 1851 as a reading room for the settlers in the house of John Godley (the founder of Canterbury).

It relocated several times, predominantly between the two buildings shown above.  The one on the left also served as the Council Chambers and was where the Lyttelton Arts Factory is now located. 

The building shown on the right was originally built as a dedicated fire station in 1902 (following the great fire of 1870 when Lyttelton did not have a fire brigade). It was also built to accommodate a range of needs which included a reading room and library.  The fire station used this building until 1967.

These buildings were both destroyed in the 2011 earthquake, and in 1999 the library was relocated to the corner of London Street and Canterbury

If you look towards London Street, on the right corner you will be facing the former site of the Queens Hotel.  It was here that the great fire of Lyttelton in 1870 began.  Got to the next site Lyttelton School