This site contains some local history and information about the settlement of Swannanoa in North Canterbury, New Zealand. Not to be confused with the town of Swannanoa in North Carolina, USA, after which the New Zealand settlement is named.
The main areas of interest that are accumulated here relate to the School, the [[Church?]], the general History of the area, and some [[Maps?]] both ancient and modern. There is also a collection of useful external Links.
The settlement of Swannanoa started in the 1850s as the focal point for a community of dryland farmers. A Railway line was built through the district and the official location of Swannanoa, at the intersection of 2 Chain Road and North Eyre Road was the location of the train station. The area didn’t develop substantially for the next 100 years, although the community focused more around the school, church and hall on Tram Road. The railway line was removed in the 1950s, but the district’s character really started to change only in the 1970s, when the proximity to Christchurch meant the population started to increase and the land started to be broken up into smaller runs and eventually rural lifestyle blocks and residential subdivisions.
Hopefully this site will prove interesting to you and provide you with some trivia and a sense of connection with the land, perhaps to invoke a sense of pride or fondness for the heritage and the people who created this place. Enjoy!
-Murray