Nelsons Main Street

The main central road that bisects our city shopping district is called Trafalgar Street……

just like the many other very English sounding street names we have locally

at the southern most end is our equivalent of Christchurchs “The Strip”

……..where we have a mass accumulation of bars and cafes.

Where the road ends (there is a Trafalgar St South too) there are the steps that are locally referred to as “the church steps.”

These steps were actually gifted to the city in 1913 by Thomas Cawthron, a wealthy local merchant in 1913.

According to the NZ Historic Places Trust site, “the Church Steps are one of just two surviving structures made from Tonga Bay granite, New Zealand's only true granite.”