The Avon River Poplars

The tallest of these poplars reaches 38 metres, and it was planted on purpose to make Christchurch look like somewhere else. The row stands along the Otakaro Avon River between Madras and Manchester Streets, beside the Margaret Mahy Playground. That somewhere was England. The poplars went in during the late 1920s, when the nearby Rotunda and Clock Tower were being built, as part of a beautification programme begun by the Christchurch Beautifying Society. Samuel Delabere Barker had founded the society in 1897, and its aim was to give the central city an English riverside. Lombardy Poplars, narrow and upright as a row of steeples along the bank, were the look. A century on, the row is heritage protected, and it is ageing out one trunk at a time. The city register counts 23 poplars at this site; this entry marks the largest, 600 centimetres round and classed as a veteran. In the 2020s two of the stand were felled after testing found decay at the base, and young poplars were planted in their place. That is how a row like this survives: not all at once, but by quiet substitution. We cannot promise the exact trunk marked here is one of the healthy ones, which is one reason the pin is approximate. The row itself is impossible to miss.