ARCHITECTURE:
This imposing block presides over the important intersection of Pandora Av and Cook St. It is a symmetrical, L-shaped, two-storey Commercial building, low and wide with a flat roof and low parapet. The frieze has small, paired modillions and decorative capitals on the two-storey pilasters. The wide belt course between the floors is denticulated. The horizontal effect is moderated by pilasters, the capitals of which are hooded at the roofline. The upper floor has shallow, recessed angled bays interrupted by single double-hung sashes. A wide, prominent oriel bay sits above the double doors of the main corner entrance. To the left of the oriel is a pair of double-hung sashes, and to the right is a handsome lunette window with stained glass and an elaborate casing. Original roll-up awnings were replaced with fixed units. The cladding is white glazed bricks, the bases of the pilasters are dark. The rear of the building is plain red brick, more visible since the elimination of tiny Opal St, which ran west where the parking lot and park now sit. Several matching red brick outbuildings are attached. The building survived for over a century serving its original role of stores with apartments above, until 2020 when problems with the sewer system caused it’s early closure. It is currently being redeveloped.
ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
This structure was built in 1911 as shops and an apartment complex for Victoria businessman David R. Ker (1521/1524 Shasta Pl, Rockland). Little is known about the first occupants except for George Alfred Richardson (1025-27 Moss St, Rockland) who was born in Victoria in 1867 and was a drygoods merchant. The residential floor is known as Parkway Apartments; there were eight tenants by 1917 and 11 by 1921.
OTHER OCCUPANTS:
Matthew Wellburn was a grocer for his entire working life; he helped in the family grocery store until just three months before his death and still attended church at St. John the Divine. Wellburn was quoted as saying that he came to Vancouver Island for a visit in 1910 “and never got over it.” In 1911 he returned to England to bring his wife Geraldine and five children here. Their first home was on Grant St and the children attended the new Victoria High School. Matthew first worked for another grocer but c.1912 he set up his own shop at Camosun and Pandora (extant). Two years later he moved to the Cook and Pandora premises, where two previous grocers had failed. Wellburn’s Cash Grocery Store grew steadily, taking over a bakery, a bank, a pharmacy and other businesses until it finally became a supermarket. By the end of the 1960s it was managed by Matthew’s son George Matthew Wellburn (b. Victoria 1916-1975). Later known simply as Wellburn’s Market, it was over 100 years old when it closed.
Several Wellburn children were amongst Victoria’s top swimmers in the 1920s, most notably Cyril Thomas “Tom” Vernon Wellburn (b. ENG 1904-1987) who established a new Canadian record racing against Johnny Weismuller at the newly opened Crystal Garden pool (713 Douglas St, Downtown, designated heritage) in 1925. Eldest Wellburn son Gerald “Gerry” Eley Wellburn (b. Scarborough, ENG 1900-1992) established the BC Forest Museum N of Duncan in 1965.*
*Wellburn family info Dennis Minaker