Eleven
million years ago two volcanoes erupted out of the sea to form what is known
as
Banks Peninsula. After a long period of activity they rose to a height of about
5000 ft.
and then slowly ceased to erupt. The centres of each cone collapsed back into
the bowels
of the earth forming what is known as a caldera, into which the sea entered.
The most northern cone created Lyttelton Harbour and the other, Akaroa Harbour.
To the Maori tribe of Ngati Mamoe it was known as Te Whaka Raupo. It is translated
as "the bay of Raupo". The main settlements of the Maori people in
the Harbour
wwere at Purau and Rapaki. The first European to sight the Harbour was Captain
S Chase of the sealing vessel Pegasus in 1809 when he noted that Capt. James
Cook's
maps were wrong and Banks Island as he called it, was in fact a peninsula. The
first
settlers were Joseph and Edward Greenwood who built a house in Purau. Whaling
ships from several nations used the shelter of the Harbour in the early 1800's
and
they named it Port Cooper after a Sydney Whaling Company, Cooper and Levy.
The Canterbury Association was formed in 1848 to found a totally Church of
England settlement and the first pilgrims from England arrived on 16th of December
1850 in the socalled first four ships. The 16th of December is now considered
Lyttelton's
Anniversary Day and is celebrated by an annual walk over the Bridle Path. The
town was
laid out by Edward Jollie and the streets named after English sees(areas served
by a
bishop) by Capt. J Thomas, it had been created within a period of a few months
and had
been named Lyttelton after Lord Lyttelton, a strong supporter of the Canterbury
settlement.
Across the hills, Thomas had cut the Bridle Path to the plains. In 1858 the
Harbour
name
was
changed to Lyttelton. The first tlegraph line in New Zealand linked Christchurch
and
Lyttelton in 1859. The town became a municipal district in 1861 and a borough
in 1868.
In 1989 Lyttelton became part of the Banks Peninsula District Council as a result
of the
amalgamation with Akaroa and Wairewa County Councils. The rail tunnel opened
in 1867
and was the first tunnel in the world to be driven through the wall of a volcanoe.
The road
tunnel was started in 1960. In 1870 the entire centre of town was destroyed
by fire.
The building of a better business center was resulted and many of the buildings
still serve
the town to this day. Most of the roads and walls around the town were built
by prison labour
from the Lyttelton jail. Lyttelton is becoming a popular place to live as it
is near to all the
facilities that Christchurch offers, yet it has an atmosphere and ambience of
its own with
magnificent harbour and hill views.
