Hoon Hay

Hoon Hay is an outer suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand, located at the base of the Port Hills and about southwest of Cathedral Square. The area was named by Captain Wickham Talbot Harvey, a captain of the British Royal 10th Hussars, who moved to the area in 1852 and named it after the farm near Hatton, Derbyshire where he grew up. Harvey only stayed in the area for four years, before a fire destroyed his property and prompted him to return to the United Kingdom. Further fires in the following years destroyed the woodland which was on the property, including several large Tōtara, causing it to be converted into farmland. Remnants of this forest remain visible in the area, including with tree stumps being discovered during flood mitigation work on the Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River.
Hoon Hay maintains aspects of both a rural and suburban surrounding. It is bordered by the suburbs of Hillmorton and Spreydon to the north, Somerfield and Cashmere to the east and Halswell to the southwest, along with new developments in the adjacent Port Hills. Despite this, the suburb is also bordered by farmland and the nearby Hoon Hay valley, maintaining the suburb as semi-rural. The Cashmere Stream, a tributary of the Ōpāwaho / Heathcote River, flows down the valley and through the suburb.