SYDENHAM PARK ------Sydenham Park Did Not Receive Its Name Until 1894
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ANCESTRY OF SYDENHAM CRICKET CLUB AT PAPERS PAST BY FLAGON PARK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SYDENHAM PARK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sydenham Park did not receive its name until 1894. According to the first two articles below, a Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association held its first show in October 1862 in a paddock of about four acres, the Press article saying it was in Armagh Street and the Lyttelton Times article saying it was fenced in by gorse to the north of Latimer Square with an 'inconvenient' entrance being located in Madras Street. It seems that the Association was a working committee formed to organise the first 'experimental' event because a Lyttelton Times article of 10 January 1863 reports that a meeting was to be held on 24 January to make the Association permanent. Having formed permanently, The Association purchased a 14 acre block of land in Colombo Street, the site of the future Sydenham Park, for £1560 at £120 per acre, the conveyance date being 14 July 1863. At the time this was thought of as the south end of Colombo Street. The second show of the Association was held at their new location in October 1863 and was an annual event there until the Association developed a new 33 acre ground in Addington which many current club members will have visited over the years. In recent times the showground has moved again to a much larger site at Hillmorten to the west of Curletts Road, called Canterbury Agricultural Park. Sydenham Borough was formed in 1877. The first Sydenham Cricket Club was also formed in 1877. From time to time cricket clubs and other organisations asked the Association to be able to use the show ground. The Association did allow some use but in general was not very receptive to such requests, being understandably wary to protect its greatest asset from damage and to avoid it being thought of as a public recreation space. By October 1887 the Agricultural & Pastoral Association had moved to their new 33 acre show ground at Addington for that year's show. Over the next few years they tried to sell the old 14 acre show ground at Sydenham to help finance their new purchase but finding a buyer at the desired selling price of £6000 in the depressed conditions of the time was not easy. The Sydenham Borough wanted the old show ground as a recreation reserve but affordability and hence accountability to the ratepayers was a problem, even after the Association dropped the asking price by a third to £4000. The Borough tried to get the government involved in a purchase but without success. This situation went on for quite a few years until 1893 when a bill presented in the House of Representatives on behalf of the Association forced the issue. The bill would have allowed the Association to dispose of the ground as quarter acre sections by lottery. Despite the misgivings of many of the House representatives about the gambling nature of the lottery and the risk of setting a precedent for similar bills, the bill passed its second reading, which severely increased the danger that the chance of having a wonderful public recreation reserve in the heart of Sydenham Borough would be irretrievably lost. Sydenham Borough representatives rushed to Wellington for urgent talks, the outcome of which was that the Government induced the House to pass a vote allowing the Government, the Borough and the Association to negotiate a deal. The Agricultural & Pastoral Association at a meeting on 24 March 1894 authorised the signing of the sale document of the old show ground to the Queen, and the long desired public recreation reserve came into being. The Government come up with half the £4000 sale price and the Borough came up with the other half by raising a loan for £2000. The new reserve was named Sydenham Park at a Sydenham Borough council meeting on 7 May 1894. Having procured the ground for public use, the council then entertained the idea in 1894 of allowing cycling interests to construct an imposing asphalt cycle racing track on the park, of which the public was decidedly not in favour. Discussions were well under way with the Pioneer and Christchurch Cycling Club but fell through when the latter and other supporting cycle clubs pulled out after the Lancaster Park company constructed such a track. Previously the Lancaster Park company had left the cyclists to use the unsuitable trotting track at Lancaster Park. That debacle was followed by the borough council entertaining the idea of a horse racing track being constructed at Sydenham Park by the Lancaster Park Amateur Trotting Club for use on four days a year. There were already such tracks at Lancaster Park and Addington and neither the Lancaster Park company nor the disgusted Sydenham public were in favour of the idea. It could be that the trotting club was using Sydenham Park as a means to induce concessions from the Lancaster Park company regarding the trotting track at Lancaster Park. Once again negotiations were well underway, but the public outcry was great and, after representations by deputations of citizens at council meetings and a petition signed by 800 people against the proposal was presented to the council, some councillors changed their minds, and the council did not take the matter further. It was a close run thing because the vote on the relevant motion to reverse a previous decision to go ahead with things was passed 6-5 by a vote among the councillors. The Borough Council had already obtained permission via the Government to be able to charge entry to Sydenham Park on ten days a year and was agitating to be able to do it on twenty days a year. That and the cycling and trotting sagas show that the council was keen to make money out of the park, presumably due to the need to help pay it off, but I have also wondered if the council thought they could make Sydenham Park into a mini-version of Lancaster Park. Lancaster Park was originally established in 1880 specifically to allow cricket and other sports to be able to charge entry fees to their activities, the Provincial council and then the Christchurch City council having steadfastly refused to allow entry fees to be charged at public reserves since their establishment. Very loud echoes of this could be heard in the recent debate over whether Canterbury Cricket should be able to stage its commercial activities at Hagley Oval, part of the large Hagley Park reserve which when originally established was designated for the free use of the public of Canterbury at all times. A grand outdoor demonstration and fete was held at Sydenham Park on 29 November 1894 to formally open Sydenham Park to the public, the opportunity being taken at the same time to gather donations to the Wairararapa Relief Fund, the Wairarapa being a ship that had recently sunk with the major loss of 140 lives, the biggest number of people dying on a shipwreck in New Zealand's maritime history. The Sydenham Football Club, formed in 1882, put in a request in March 1894 to the Sydenham Borough Council for permission to use the park while negotiations by the Council with the Agricultural & Pastoral Association were still in progress, and were certainly playing matches there in the winter. In 1895 the third Sydenham Cricket Club, formed in April 1895, also obtained permission to use Sydenham Park. In the 1898-99 season the Sydenham Rivals Cricket Club began, they too being based at Sydenham Park. Other cricket matches were also played on Sydenham Park, for example by local church youth sides or occasional games played by various organisations. The Sydenham Cricket Club of 1895 lasted only a few months because later that year it merged with the second Addington Cricket Club to form the Sydenham & Addington United Cricket Club, the new name being adopted at the AGM on 31 August 1895. Other sports followed onto the park, the Sydenham Hockey Club which was formed in June 1898, and the Sydenham Bowling Club in April 1899, the latter reviving itself after an earlier stint in Kingsley Street, having first formed in October 1888. The bowling club had initially asked for a ground at the Waltham end of Sydenham Park, but took instead the northwest corner. The Sydenham District Cricket Club formed in 1905 to take the occupancy on Sydenham Park formerly held by the Sydenham & Addington United and Sydenham Rivals cricket clubs which disappeared with the advent of the Canterbury Cricket Association's new district cricket scheme. The use by the Sydenham football (rugby), cricket, hockey and bowling clubs continues to this day with tennis also being a sport that has been played at Sydenham Park. On 9 August 1902 the King Edward VII Coronation Memorial stone fountain was formally opened at a small gathering in Sydenham Park at the corner of Brougham Street and Colombo Street, a Coronation Oak being planted nearby as well. A Coronation Band Rotunda was opened in Sydenham Park on 19 Nov 1902 and Sydenham Park became a venue for regular concerts thereafter. As well as the usual sports played every season on the park, picnics, parades and fetes, and many other events have been held at Sydenham Park over the years. A great example is Broncho George's Wild West Exhibition in November 1900. Another great example is Captain SCOTT's crew of the ship 'Discovery' which played the Sydenham Hockey club at Sydenham Park in June 1904 and drew. Hockey was a sport they had played on the ice in Antarctica.