Seaside Christchurch suburb on the sandy beach of Pegasus Bay. In 1894 New Brighton gained a pier, like Brighton in England. This was demolished in 1965, but there is a concrete replacement. From 1887, trams brought city folk to the beach. From the 1950s, houses spread south down the Brighton Spit.
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Meaning of place name
When James Edward FitzGerald, acting superintendent of Canterbury, paid a visit to the run, a settler called William Fee hastily chalked 'New Brighton' on a piece of wood and nailed it over the sawpit where he was working, probably because Stephen Brooker, another settler, had been born in Brighton.
