On the trail of Lovelock

The future of Lovelock Ave is up for debate again at this year's Dunedin City Council annual plan hearings, where a decision will be made on whether it should make way for the priorities of Dunedin Botanic Garden. Opoho resident Emeritus Professor Helen Leach looks at the avenue's history.

Lovelock Ave is rich in history, though the early portion has only just been revealed.

Most people know that it was named in honour of Jack Lovelock, our Olympic champion at the Berlin Games in 1936.

If you turn up Lovelock Ave from Dundas St, just above the Leith bridge, you will see a commemorative plaque to Lovelock on a boulder just to the right of the road.

Lovelock Ave then climbs through the Town Belt to a sharp corner where a right turn takes you to the entrance to the Northern Cemetery or out to Brackens View.

The avenue continues to the left, following a loop past the Dunedin Botanic Garden azalea garden on the left, and the Opoho Bowling Club and botanic garden education centre on the right.

There are no footpaths on this section of Lovelock Ave because a pedestrian route diverges from the road at the cemetery corner and climbs steeply between Lovelock Bush and the cemetery hedge, rejoining Lovelock Ave where the Opoho sports fields begin.

Jack Lovelock lived in adjacent Warden St while he studied medicine in Dunedin.

Almost certainly he would have trained on both the road and the path beside the cemetery, and it was quite appropriate to rename the road and bush in his honour in 1968.

Before that date, Lovelock Ave was officially Cemetery Rd.

The Dunedin City Council has gained resource consent to close the section of Lovelock Ave above the cemetery corner and to reroute traffic on a new road where the footpath now is - though is to re-examine the issue at its annual plan hearings.

Opoho residents with experience of both routes have protested that the new shorter section would be dangerously icy in winter, prone to sunstrike, and impossibly steep for cyclists.

But the commissioners hearing the resource consent application were not convinced.

The reasons for rerouting Lovelock Ave above the cemetery corner were first revealed to the public on October 18, 2006, at the launch of the Dunedin Botanic Garden strategic development plan.

The closure would improve safety for garden staff and the public and it would improve security by moving vehicles to the outer perimeter of the garden (though the Northern Cemetery, which the road will now flank, has been at least as often targeted by vandals as the Botanic Garden).

Even more importantly, closing upper Lovelock Ave would "unlock an area of prime, flat land, some of the best in the garden", in the words of Jayson Kelly, then president of the Friends of the Botanic Garden. Other reasons emerged in later press releases, including the opportunity to reclaim bush areas (Lovelock Bush) and enhance them.

Significantly, the application for the resource consent began with the statement that Lovelock Ave was an intrusion into the Botanic Garden.

The resource consent hearing was told the realignment "will permit the integration of the entire 28 hectares as a single entity on a site that the Dunedin Botanic Garden has occupied since 1867".

In fact, the road predates the development of the upper garden.

It is not an intrusion.

The botanic garden expanded from 16ha in 1878 until it reached Lovelock Ave, then in the last three decades redrew its northeastern boundary along the edge of the Northern Cemetery.

It now encompasses 28ha.

Long before it was renamed Lovelock Ave, a road joined the lower end of Signal Hill Rd with Dundas St, emerging from the Town Belt at the northern end of Forth St.

It first appears as a track on Fergusson and Mitchell's town map of 1866, but it is probably not accurately positioned.

My attempt to follow its supposed route downhill took me to a very steep, wet hillside below the cemetery corner, quite unsuited to horse- or oxen-drawn vehicles.

However, there was a growing need for a track.

By 1867, Signal Hill Rd had been formed to provide access to the new farms on the ridge and upper slopes.

This track gave the occupiers a quick route to Pelichet Bay and West Harbour.

In 1867, the Botanic Garden was still located on its original site on Leith St.

A year later, it was so badly damaged by a flood that the provincial secretary proposed that it should be relocated to the acclimatisation society's grounds, where the lower garden is now.

In 1869, a competition was held for an appropriate design for the layout of the new site.

The winner proposed cutting walks through an area of bush, presumably on the hillside overlooking the ponds (Otago Daily Times, December 6, 1869).

This marked the start of the expansion of the Botanic Garden up the slope above Lindsays Creek.

Meanwhile, there were plans to take a section of the Town Belt on the other side of the ridge.

By 1864, Dunedin's Southern Cemetery was becoming full.

A Pine Hill landowner offered six or seven acres of his land (at the rather high price of 50 per acre) but the offer was turned down because of its closeness to town, its steepness, and the fact that runoff would flow towards residential areas.

In 1868, a Bill went to Parliament proposing a North Dunedin cemetery on the slope above Pelichet Bay.

Legislation was required because the land would be taken from the Town Belt.

Feelings ran high as William Reynolds told a public meeting that he objected "not only as a representative of the city, but as a citizen, to these reserves or any part of them being taken away from the public".

The Town Belt, he maintained, should not be used "for any purpose save that for which it was intended, the recreation of citizens".

An elector replied that a "neatly-arranged cemetery" was better than a Town Belt damaged by wild animals (Otago Witness, November 14, 1868).

At that time, there was unauthorised removal of timber as well as grazing within the Town Belt.

In 1871, the Private Bills Committee recommended passing the Bill on condition "that the cemetery shall not be within 300 yards of any private residence" (Otago Witness, October 21, 1871).