Sydenham, New Zealand

Sydenham is an inner suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand, located two kilometres south of the city centre, on and around the city’s main street, Colombo Street. It is a residential, retail and light industrial suburb.HistoryThe Sydenham borough was formed in 1876 and Charles Allison advocated that the new local body in the area be the Sydenham Borough Council named after Charles Prince’s crockery and china shop on Colombo Street called "Sydenham House". The crockery shop, in turn, was named after the north-west Kent town of Sydenham, which is now a London suburb within the London Borough of Lewisham.The first council and its first mayor, Mayor George Booth, were elected in 1877. On 31 March 1903, the borough amalgamated with the City of Christchurch and became a suburb. At that time Sydenham already had its own swimming-baths, fire-engine, cemetery and recreation grounds. Apart from the large cities, Sydenham was the largest borough in New Zealand at the time.GeographySydenham is separated from the central city by the South Island Main Trunk Railway and Moorhouse Avenue. State Highway 73 runs through the southern part of Sydenham. The southern boundary of Sydenham is Tennyson Street.Heritage buildingsSydenham has a number of heritage buildings registered by Heritage New Zealand, with some already lost or to be lost due to the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Woolstore in Durham Street is the only Category I heritage building. Coming from the south, the Sydenham Post Office and the Sydenham Heritage Church formed an entry into the strip shopping area along Colombo Street, but the church was controversially demolished shortly after the February earthquake.