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A grid of shopping streets and precincts spreads north from the Square, the most interesting section being around New Regent Street two minutes' walk east along Gloucester Street. Built in 1932, and home to some of the city's more interesting upmarket cafes and stores, it's one of Christchurch's most attractive streets, with pastel-coloured buildings and trellised balconies recalling the Spanish Mission style of architecture which flourished in eighteenth-century California and New Mexico. One block west, the well-manicured Victoria Square is bounded to the north by the languid Avon River and Christchurch's starkly modern Town Hall (daily 9am-5pm), an angular piece of minimalist design linked by footbridge to the equally radical, glass-fronted Convention Centre on the opposite side of Kilmore Street. As Christchurch's premiere entertainment venue, the town hall harbours a magnificent 2300-seat auditorium - an impressive sight even when empty. It also contains the Women's Suffrage Commemorative Wall Hanging, commissioned in 1992 to commemorate Women's Suffrage Year and depicting aspects of women's lives over the last hundred years. You can enjoy views of Victoria Square from the Town Hall Restaurant , a good place to stop for coffee. Epicureans should nip around the corner to the venerable Johnson's Grocers , 787 Colombo St, a treasure trove stacked to the rafters with just about every packaged gourmet product imaginable. Following the river a few steps to the southwest you find the Provincial Government Buildings , corner of Durham Street and Armagh Street (Mon-Sat 10.30am-3pm, also Oct-May Sun 2-4pm; donation requested), built between 1858 and 1865. These are the only provincial government buildings left in New Zealand and are widely regarded as the masterpiece of Christchurch's most renowned early architect, Benjamin W. Mountfort . Built in Gothic style with medieval-influenced ornamentation, the older wooden portion of the chambers has a fine flagstone-paved corridor. The stone council chamber, the high-Victorian Great Hall (1869), is magnificently decorated with an intricate ceiling and elaborate stonework. Masks of the two craftsmen responsible for all this finery appear in the stonework: on the east wall near the fireplace on the ground floor and on the east wall of the public gallery. Heading northwest from here along Victoria Street, the Victorian clock tower houses a clock originally imported from England in 1860 to adorn the government buildings. Also on Victoria Street, at no. 30, Christchurch's Casino is open 24 hours all year round and contains the usual array of bars, table games and a flood of one-armed bandits. You have to be smartly dressed and aged over 18 to get in.
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