Also known as: His Lordship’s Hotel, His Lordship’s Hotel Café, Richardson’s Hotel, Voodoo Lounge
Location: 105 Lichfield Street, Central Christchurch
Current status: Destroyed by arson fire on 29 October 2000. The remains were demolished and the site incorporated into the SOL Square entertainment precinct, with His Lordship’s Lane now marking the former building’s footprint.
Active: 1876 – 2000 (hotel); live music c. 1990s – 2000
History
His Lordship’s Hotel was established in 1876 at 105 Lichfield Street by Robert Nickels, who obtained the original licence for the premises. The two-storey stone and brick building was one of the more handsome structures on the block — its ornate façade featured a central arched doorway, arched windows, pilasters, a dentil frieze, and a full pediment. In an era when Christchurch’s city centre was still taking shape, Lichfield Street sat at the edge of the commercial heart, and the hotel quickly established itself as a fixture of the neighbourhood.
Over the following century and a quarter, the building passed through many hands and carried several names. When Blackburn took over in 1890 it became His Lordship’s Hotel Café; Richardson, who acquired it the following year, renamed it Richardson’s Hotel. Matthews took ownership in 1894, followed by Emily Helmling in 1899, Burke in 1903, and Lahman in 1905. The Goulding sisters ran it for a period before Stafford took over in 1948, Bailey in 1961, and Inns of Canterbury from 1970. Corporate ownership arrived in 1989 under His Lordship’s Hotel Limited, passing to Lichfield Properties Limited in 1996. Each era left little trace beyond the licence records, but the building itself endured — a continuous presence on Lichfield Street as the city changed around it.
By the early 1990s, the area south of Lichfield Street was undergoing a transformation. The warehouse district bounded by Lichfield, Manchester, and Tuam Streets was becoming known as SOL Square — South Of Lichfield — and filling rapidly with bars, restaurants, and music venues. His Lordship’s Hotel sat at the north edge of this precinct, and the narrow lane running beside it became its main pedestrian artery. His Lordship’s Lane channelled crowds through from Lichfield Street into the heart of the quarter on weekend nights, and the hotel itself became part of the precinct’s fabric.
Through the 1990s the venue hosted live music from the local underground scene. Christchurch bands including Ape Management, Constant Pain, Squirm, and Whitey Hiss played the room, part of a dense live circuit that made SOL Square one of the most active music precincts in the country. The hotel’s long bar and lived-in character suited the era.
In 1997 the hotel era drew to a close. The premises reopened the following year as the Voodoo Lounge cocktail bar, but the reinvention was short-lived. On 29 October 2000 an arsonist set the building alight. The structure was destroyed and the remains demolished. His Lordship’s Lane survived as the pedestrian entrance to SOL Square through the 2000s — the name outlasting the building it had been named for by more than a decade. The February 2011 earthquake caused heavy damage across the SOL Square precinct, closing most of what had remained of the entertainment quarter Christchurch had built there through the nineties.
Christchurch Central, Christchurch 8011, New Zealand
Links
- His Lordship’s Hotel — Canterbury Stories
- SOL Square: South of Lichfield — Peeling Back History
- His Lordships bar, Lichfield Street — DiscoveryWall