Prior to European colonisation, a small Māori settlement was located here, on the bank of the Avon River / Ōtākaro (where the Christchurch Supreme Court was later built).

In the early days, Oxford and Cambridge Terraces ran alongside the river, but those streets have now been pedestrianised and only continue through the square as footpaths.

[8] Indeed in 1850 Puāri was the name of a small Māori settlement on the bank of the Avon River (where the Christchurch Supreme Court was later built), which was likely to better facilitate trade with the European settlers at the nearby Market Place.

[9] Christchurch was surveyed by Joseph Thomas and Edward Jollie in March 1850, and on these earliest maps the area that became Victoria Square is marked as grassland.

[11] The third wooden building in Christchurch — a general store owned by Charles Wellington Bishop — was built on the Colombo Street side of the square in early 1851.

By March 1852 Market Place was home to the city's first post office,[14] three general stores, a hotel and stable, a butchery, a carpenter, a tinsmith and a gunsmith.

[15] George Gould, the father of the prominent businessman and long-time director of The Press of the same name, had his general store on Colombo Street facing Market Square.

[21] A simple wooden bridge over the Avon River was constructed on Colombo Street in 1859, and the Market Hall was built by the provincial council on the north side of the square.

[34] Patriotism was heightened during the Second Boer War, and with the 50th jubilee of Christchurch in 1900 it was decided a statue of Queen Victoria would be erected in Market Place.

[38] During the first few years of the 1930s the Great Depression made Victoria Square into the scene of violent clashes between Police, striking workers and the unemployed.

The civic offices were not built; the city council instead purchased Miller's Department Store in Tuam Street and moved there in 1980; this proved to be much cheaper than building new premises.

[59] During the opening ceremony, outgoing Mayor of Christchurch Hamish Hay described the redesigned square as "one of the most magnificent passive recreation areas in New Zealand".

[64] In August 2011, Central City Business Association chair Paul Lonsdale suggested that Victoria Street could be re-established through the square when the Crowne Plaza hotel was demolished.

[65] The idea was criticised in part because the Hamish Hay Bridge would require expensive structural work to carry car traffic, and re-establishing the road would destroy a key green space in the central city.

[69][70][71] The Christchurch Central Development Unit released plans in 2014 for a NZ$7,000,000 remodelling of the square as part of the Avon River precinct upgrade.

[76] Part of the planned redevelopment included a Māori cultural centre — Te Puna Aruhea — to be built in Victoria Square on the former Crown Plaza site.

A number of Ngāi Tahu cultural art installations were included as part of the restored square to re-assert mana motuhake over the area.

[93] The buildings looked out across the Avon River into the square, and featured an imposing row of Victorian era brick arches stacked two storeys high.

[93] Confusingly they shared their name with the original landing site of brothers William and John Deans near the Barbadoes Street Bridge further down the Avon River.

Designed in the inter-war Georgian revival style, it was built in 1926 and spent much of its life as medical rooms, and later as a branch of the National Bank of New Zealand.

[114] The area is also home to The Arcades, a series of tall wooden arched pergolas that run diagonally from the corner of Kilmore and Durham Streets into the square.

Intended as a temporary feature,[115] The Arcades were designed by architect Andrew Just for Jessica Halliday and Ryan Reynolds of the Life in Vacant Spaces trust, and built in 2013.

[116] The arches are designed to invoke a "vaguely gothic" feel, and were modelled on the shape of the south entrance to the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings.

Local businessman Henry Layton Bowker had an office on Colombo Street overlooking the square, and willed a £1,000 portion of his estate to the city to build a fountain near the town hall.

After his death in 1921, and with no concrete plans for a town hall to be built, his son suggested the fountain should instead be constructed in Victoria Square to replace the recently-removed band rotunda.

[129] Created to commemorate the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi by Ngāi Tahu, the pou stands 6 metres (20 ft) tall and was carved from tōtara by Riki Manuel.

A tauranga (a berthing place for waka), a significant cabbage tree (cordyline australis), and a concrete table depicting kanakana are situated behind the pouwhenua.

Carved by Ngāi Tahu carver Fayne Robinson and unveiled in 2019 they pay tribute to the signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi and the shared cultural history of the area.

[148][146] A large boulder with an embedded bronze plaque commemorates the early French settler François Le Lievre of Akaroa.

[150] Ice Cream Charlie is an ice-cream vendor that operates from a semi-permanent cart opposite the Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre on Armagh Street, at the south-side of the square.