Images worth treasuring

One of the joys of working with collections at the South Canterbury Museum is coming across new stories and discoveries. On a good week that can happen daily.

This lovely image of a local house under construction is a prime example. A photograph like this is simply a gem. The image shows plasterers posed outside a home being built on Otipua Rd in 1911.

Built by Shillito Bros Ltd, the house was once on the fringes of town. Even more special is that the donor was able to recount that in the 1950s the owners sold fresh milk from the gate to locals. In terms of our collection at the museum both the image and story are rare indeed – definitely taoka (precious things) to be treasured.

Rare now, images like these probably have been common in personal collections across the district over the years. Many will have been lost, or be so familiar to some families they might not realise how uncommon they are.

Yet one of the most common types of queries we get – and sometimes the trickiest – are those seeking information about homes and property ownership. The museum recently developed a research guide for property that can help though. Many of the resources aren’t actually held by us at the museum, but a number are easily accessible remotely and online.

For example, Canterbury Maps has a limited but awesome collection of local historic aerial imagery, sometimes going back into the 1930s. There are plenty of gaps in the records, but aerial images give an opportunity to see what the neighbourhood around these properties were once like.

So, if you have an early image of your house, treasure it. If you want to know more about your property, check out the property research guide on the ‘‘Research’’ page of South Canterbury Museum’s website.