Christchurch Botanic Gardens - Historic Walk A brochure is available from the Information Centre in the Gardens describing the background of various points of interest visited in a 'Historic Walk'. This self guiding walk covers a selection of important sites and buildings around the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and Hagley Park. The walk is a circuit which takes a lesiurely one and a half hours. The notes are designed to start and finish at the Information Centre. However, you may begin at any convenient point.
Information is provided on the origins of many familiar landmarks.
The Gardens Restaurant, for example, first known as the Tea Kiosk, suffered several serious fires after it was built in 1910. Few Cantabrians would contemplate swimming in the Avon now, however in the 1870's public bathing in the Avon River had become a popular pastime for the men and youth of the settlement. Surrounded by a thick belt of trees, the official bathing place was upstream of the footbridge, behind the present nursery. In 1881 The Canterbury Public Domains Board thinned trees and undergrowth in this area to form a footpath along the riverbank. This caused a storm of protest for the would be bathers.