Caversham, New Zealand
Caversham is one of the older suburbs of the city of Dunedin, in New Zealand's South Island. It is sited at the western edge of the city's central plain at the mouth of the steep Caversham Valley, which rises to the saddle of Lookout Point. Major road and rail routes south lie nearby; the South Island Main Trunk railway runs through the suburb, and a bypass skirts its main retail area, connecting Dunedin's one-way street system with the Dunedin Southern Motorway. The suburb is linked by several bus routes to its neighbouring suburbs and central Dunedin.
The suburb was founded by wealthy pioneer William Henry Valpy, and its name reflects his family connections with the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. Caversham grew rapidly during the Otago gold rush of the 1860s because of its location on routes south to the Otago hinterland. By the end of the 19th century, Caversham was heavily industrialised, and its population included many skilled or semi-skilled tradespeople. This, combined with the community's strong Protestant roots, led to the area's generally left-leaning political stance. Caversham's early history has been the subject of the Caversham Project, a major historical and archaeological study by the University of Otago. Caversham was a separate borough until 1904, when it was amalgamated with Dunedin city. At a national level, it is part of the Taieri electorate.
Caversham is now predominantly residential, with some industrial premises in the east and a retail district centred on South Road and Hillside Road. Residents are generally of low socio-economic status. Caversham's notable buildings include the heritage listed Lisburn House and several prominent church buildings. Another landmark is the suburb's war memorial, which is the main gate of Caversham School, the suburb's primary school. Caversham also contains a special-needs school. The nearest secondary schools operate in St Clair, to the south.
Caversham has strong sporting connections, and is the location of Carisbrook, until 2011 one of Dunedin's main sports venues. The suburb is home to the Southern Rugby Football Club, and gives its name to Caversham Football Club. Several notable sportspeople have associations with Caversham, among them Test cricketer Clarrie Grimmett and father and son rugby union administrators "Old Vic" and "Young Vic" Cavanagh. Other notable people with Caversham connections include politician Thomas Kay Sidey, architect Edmund Anscombe, and surveyor John Turnbull Thomson.
Geography
Caversham lies at the mouth and in the lower reaches of a valley in the west of Dunedin's main urban area, southwest of the city centre, and north of the Pacific coast at St Clair. To the south lies Calton Hill, a spur of Forbury Hill, on which the suburbs of Calton Hill, Corstorphine and Kew are located.The suburbs of Balaclava and Maryhill lie to the north, close to the western end of the ridge that runs along the northern edge of central Dunedin. These hills were all once part of the rim of the Dunedin volcano, the long-extinct crater of which now forms Otago Harbour. Other suburbs nearby include Forbury, South Dunedin, Kensington, and Lookout Point.
Caversham Valley has long been the major route out of the central city to the south. The suburb is located close to the start of the Dunedin Southern Motorway, the main road access to central Dunedin from the south, and close to the South Island Main Trunk railway. The creation of the Dunedin Southern Motorway redirected traffic away from South Road, the main thoroughfare through Caversham.
The railway provides the suburb's most important industry, through the Hillside Railway Workshops, which are located in the southeast of the suburb and in the adjoining suburb of South Dunedin. Despite this, there are no longer any public railway stations or halts in Caversham, the last station having closed in 1962.
The hill slopes to the north of Caversham are less densely populated, and still retain some tree cover. This, along with the steepness of the land, forms a natural barrier between Caversham and the suburb of Maryhill. Only a few winding roads traverse this barrier, most notably Glen Road, at the eastern end of Caversham. At this end, the suburb draws close to the foot of the hills, and a natural valley, known locally as "The Glen", provides easier road access to the hill ridge.
To the northeast of the Glen, a hill spur including a cliff separates Caversham from the central part of the city. Though the name is rarely used, this spur is called Montecillo Ridge, named for the mansion of early settler W.H. Reynolds. It is occasionally referred to as "Hillside", after the house of the city's founding father Captain William Cargill which was located here. This ridge overlooks "The Flat", as the plain stretching across to the Pacific coast was locally known. South Road winds around the spur, connecting with the southern end of Princes Street. One of the city's older and more historic cemeteries, Dunedin Southern Cemetery, lies on the inner city side of this spur.
Lookout Point
At the top of Caversham Valley are a ridge and the saddle of Lookout Point. Lookout Point commands views to the southwest past the outer suburbs of Burnside and Green Island to Saddle Hill, as well as providing a view to the east across the southern part of the central city to Otago Harbour and the Otago Peninsula.The most prominent building in Lookout Point is the local fire station, which also serves both Caversham and Green Island. This 1956 structure is located immediately to the north of the saddle and is a prominent landmark upon entering or leaving Dunedin. Not far from the fire station to the north-east is Dunedin's tallest tree, a eucalyptus measuring an estimated 100 metres. The Dunedin Southern Motorway officially begins at the Lookout Point saddle, between Calton Hill and Maryhill, and sweeps down over broken hill country past Green Island to Mosgiel and the Taieri Plains.
Lookout Point is also the home of the former Caversham Industrial School, located to the northeast of the fire station on Mornington Road. Established in 1869, the school was later a boys' home, and is now an adult training centre. Lookout Point's main streets include South Road, Caversham Valley Road, Riselaw Road, and Mornington Road. A major flyover was constructed at Lookout Point in the early 2000s, allowing routes to the suburbs of Corstorphine and Maryhill to connect without having to negotiate a junction with the start of the Dunedin Southern Motorway.
The Māori name for Lookout Point is Ko Raka-a-runga-te-raki. It was the burial site of chief Rangi-Ihia, a late 18th-century Kāti Māmoe chief who was largely responsible for joining the Kāi Tahu and Kāti Māmoe iwi. He was buried here so that "his spirit might see thence his old haunts to the southward."
A forest reserve is located on the upper slopes of Caversham Valley below Lookout Point. Purchased by the Dunedin City Council in 1994 with the assistance of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, it is home to various native bird and invertebrate species, including one species of velvet worm believed to be endemic to the Dunedin area.
History
Caversham was named for Caversham, Berkshire, a suburb of Reading, by William Henry Valpy, a wealthy early settler who farmed the areas around the lower slopes of Forbury Hill; his initial farm, "The Forbury", was located in what is now St Clair, close to a street which now bears his name. A member of Valpy's family was born in the English Caversham.In the early days of Dunedin, it was impossible for a dray to reach the Caversham Valley in wet weather unless it went by a circuitous route around the hills. Valpy solved this problem by hiring men at his own expense to build a crude road from the southern end of Princes Street to his farm at Forbury. This formed the basis for later roads into the suburb. The road curved around the edge of the hills at the Glen to avoid a large swamp, the site of which was occupied by Carisbrook sports ground until 2011.
Settlement in the area was slow, though Caversham Valley was a preferred route south out of the city. The Otago gold rush of 1861 led to rapid changes when thousands of people began using the road on their way to and from the gold fields. The suburb began to expand rapidly at about this time, and the first public house, the Edinburgh Castle Hotel, was erected in 1861. By the end of the decade, Caversham had its own school, post office, drill hall, and Anglican and Presbyterian churches. A third church, for the Baptist denomination, followed in 1872.
Several charitable organisations have had properties in Caversham, including the Otago Benevolent Institution home for invalids, and an IHC New Zealand centre at Kew Park. The Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind still has its Otago premises in Hillside Road.
Early industries in the area included C & W Sheil's brickworks, which had quarries in Forbury, St Clair and Caversham, and Caversham Gasworks, which operated from 1882 until 1909. The last buildings of the gasworks were a local landmark, and were not removed until the construction of the Caversham bypass in the 1970s and 1980s. Other noted industries in early Caversham included breweries, a tannery, and a match factory.
Construction of the South Island Main Trunk railway south of Dunedin that began in 1871 led to the construction of an tunnel beneath Lookout Point, connecting Caversham with Green Island. A second parallel tunnel - the first double-track tunnel in the country - was built starting in 1907, and all rail traffic moved to the new tunnel in 1910. Caversham was served by its own railway station until its closure in 1962. There has been a long-running campaign to have the older tunnel converted into a cycleway, though this scheme has never gained wholehearted council support.
By the 1870s the population of Caversham was growing rapidly, and in 1877, with the population at around 4,000, it was declared a borough. It held this status until amalgamation with Dunedin city in 1904. The borough's area included much of modern Forbury and St Clair, as well as what is usually regarded as Caversham today.