New Zealand World Peace Bell: Christchurch Travel Guide

A bell cast from the world’s coins

A heavy bronze bell hangs under a small open pavilion among the garden beds. It belongs to the World Peace Bell family, a series of bells modelled on the Japanese Peace Bell that has hung at the United Nations in New York since 1954. Those bells are cast partly from coins and medals donated by people around the world, so the metal itself carries the message.

Plaques beside the pavilion explain the background. The bell rarely draws a crowd, so you can stand right underneath it and look at the casting detail up close. Most visitors pass the rose beds and the river without knowing it’s there.

Finding it in the gardens

The bell is inside the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, the stretch of lawns and specimen trees held in a loop of the Avon River beside Hagley Park. Come in from Rolleston Avenue, near the Arts Centre and Canterbury Museum. The free garden maps at the entrances and the Visitor Centre mark the bell’s pavilion.

• On foot: about 10–15 minutes from Cathedral Square along Worcester Boulevard.
• By tram: the heritage city tram runs along Rolleston Avenue, right at the gardens’ edge.
• By car: there is paid parking off Armagh Street, on the gardens’ northern side. Check the posted signs for limits.

Google currently lists the bell as open 24 hours. The gardens’ gates follow seasonal hours, though, so check the Christchurch City Council botanic gardens page for this month’s times before you plan a dawn or evening visit.

Timing a quiet visit

Weekend foot traffic follows a clear pattern. It’s calmest from 7am–9am and again from 3pm–5pm, when you’ll often have the pavilion to yourself. Avoid 12pm–2pm and 6pm–7pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Those are the peaks, when picnic groups and families pour through the main paths.

Early morning suits photographs best, because there’s nobody in the frame and the lawns are still empty. Late afternoon works if you’re combining the bell with a punt on the Avon from the Antigua Boat Sheds, which sit at the gardens’ southern edge.

Behaving well at the pavilion

This is a memorial to peace, not a playground prop. Treat it the way you’d treat a temple bell in Japan.

• Read the signage before touching anything. Whatever the plaques say about ringing applies, so follow it.
• If ringing is allowed, strike once. A single deliberate swing of the striker is the custom with peace bells. Repeated clanging carries across the gardens and annoys the people sitting nearby.
• Keep voices low. People do come here to sit quietly, particularly in a city still marked by the 2011 earthquakes.
• Stay on the paths. Garden staff ask visitors to keep off planted beds, and the area around the pavilion is no exception.

Entry to the gardens is free. Pair the bell with the Peacock Fountain, the glasshouses and the Arts Centre’s Gothic Revival quadrangles, all within a few minutes’ walk, and you have an easy half-day in the central city.