Waltham, New Zealand

This is Waltham, an inner suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand, located about 2 kilometers south-east of the city center. State Highway 76, also known as Brougham Street, which is part of Christchurch's ring road system, runs right through here, as does the Lyttelton Line rail corridor.

Waltham was actually part of the Sydenham borough until 1903, when it was incorporated into the City of Christchurch. You can see how it's bounded by Waltham Road, Moorhouse Avenue, Ferry Road, Ensors Road, and the Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River.

Back in 1866, a meeting was held at Waltham House, which was owned by an early Christchurch settler named Charles Prince, and that's where the district got its name. For a long time, the Christchurch gasworks was located at the inner boundary of Waltham, until it closed around 1980. There was also a malt works and several warehouses on Waltham Road, but those were demolished and redeveloped into 88 townhouses after the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.

In the early 1980s, local residents and the city council tried to name the western part of this suburb "Charleston," specifically the area between Ferry Road and Ensors Road. They wanted to maintain the residential nature of that spot against industrial expansion. That effort was partly successful, and today that area is referred to as both Waltham and Charleston. Overall, this suburb is a mix of residential areas and both light and heavy industry.

You'll find Lancaster Park here, which used to be Christchurch's main sports venue but is now a community park. There's also the Waltham pool. The Waltham swimming pools were pretty badly damaged in the 2011 earthquakes, but they reopened in January 2015 after about 3.2 million dollars worth of repairs, which included new signage, a re-sized plant room, fencing, painting, landscaping, and roofing. The outdoor pools are open every summer and include a nine-lane, 33-meter pool, a toddler pool, and a waterslide.

Waltham also has two schools: Waltham School, which is a primary school that opened in 1891, and Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Waitaha, a composite school established in 1987 that teaches in the Māori language.