View Hill is a sheep farming district, about five miles from West Oxford. The flag railway station of the name on the Springfield-West Oxford line is forty-six miles from Christchurch, and stands at an altitude of 948 feet above the sea. Like the rest of the Oxford district, View Hill was originally covered with bush, which has been mostly cleared, except away back on the mountain ranges. It is a school district, and has a very good library. The post office is conducted at the local store, and there is a blacksmith's shop in the township. View Hill, which is in the Oxford riding of the Ashley county, had a population of eighty-three at the census of 1901.

The View Hill Post Office was established about 1880, and has been conducted since 1889 at the store of Mr. J. P. Pole. Three marls are received and despatched weekly.

Mr. James Potts Pole, Postmaster at View Hill, has been a Canterbury settler since arriving at Lyttelton by the ship “Pekin,” in 1863. He was for ten years in the Malvern district, and removed to View Hill in 1878. Mr. Pole has been engaged in the timber trade for a number of years, and since 1889 has conducted the local store and post office.

View Hill Public School was established about 1875. It has a long narrow glebe of about five acres in extent. The building is of wood and iron, and contains two large class rooms and two porches. There are twenty-six names on the roll, and the average attendance in the first quarter of 1902 was twenty-two. There is a teacher's residence of six rooms on the property.

Miss Matilda Harvey, Teacher of the View Hill School, was born in London, and came to Lyttelton by the s.s. “Aorangi,” in 1884. After serving a pupil-teachership at Woolston, and having a year's training at the Normal College, Christchurch, Miss Harvey was appointed to Wakanui side school, where she was in charge for four years before her appointment to the View Hill school in March, 1902.