The Bridle path (and other adventures)
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| The Canterbury Settlement |
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| Landing from the Sir George Seymour |
This lithograph by William Holmes was published in C. Warren Adams’ A Spring in the Canterbury Settlement by C W Adams 1853.
- Can you see the four ships?
- What name does the handwritten title give to the harbour?
- Imagine you were in the picture. Does the walk down to the cottages look easy or challenging?
Some of us lost our shoes – Eliza’s memories
- “I was born in the Isle of Man… My father then decided to come to New Zealand and we embarked on “The Sir George Seymour for Port Lyttelton”
- Would Eliza have remembered a scene like the one depicted above in “Landing from the Sir George Seymour” when she arrived in Port Lyttelton?
…Father was then engaged by Mr Watts Russel…to manage his farm at Riccarton – the land which was afterwards called the Illam Estate.
Most of our belonging and the tools were packed and sent round to Sumner to be brought up the river. Mr Watts Russell provided us with a packhorse to carry our tent and a few necessaries, and lent us a point to carry the youngest children over the Bridlepath. The rest of us walked. It was a long and rough walk, and in crossing Shand’s swamp [Shand’s land was on the South side of the Riccarton Road and extended from opposite the present Bush up to Wharenui Road] some of us lost our shoes. When we got to the river (upper waters of the Avon) it was nearly dark and too late to pitch our tent, so we had to lie on the ground as best we could and cover ourselves with the fly of the tent.”
Source: Early Recollections of Mrs Eliza Hanna Withell,
Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre
See also >>
Our new land | Food | Shelter | Stormy weather | Bridle Path | A place to settle | Georgiana’s letter