Heritage Register
Fernwood

1252 Denman Street (ex-8 North Rd)

Built 1891
Heritage-Designated 2004

For: Walter Nathan

ARCHITECTURE:

This is a hip-roofed, two-storey, cubical Italianate house without the usual eaves brackets. It has a slightly shorter, hipped-roof addition at the rear. There is a corbelled brick chimney located close to the roof peak. The upper windows extend into the cornice, and, as is common, all the windows have drip caps and aprons. There is an angled bay on the lower front adjacent to a small entry porch, both with flat-topped hipped roofs. The porch has two square posts and a simple balustrade. The house is clad in drop siding, but was for decades covered with asphalt shingles and bevelled siding below. The house and its mirror image, 27, now 2213 Spring St, bracket the family’s corner store, see below, all of which were on two lots. From 1992 Todd Doherty rehabilitated this house. He found a trap door in the kitchen floor, over an old well. The concrete well cap is still in the crawl space under the house.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:
.
Owners: 1891-1906: In 1886 Walter Charles Nathan (b. London, ENG, c.1860-1894) bought the two lots on what is now the corner of Denman & Spring Sts. In 1890 Walter’s father Edward Owe Nathan (1853-1906), sisters Jane Alice and Harriet Clara, and brother William Henry (1851-1925) arrived from London, ENG. [Jane died that year.] They began construction on the lots in 1890 with a corner store at 6 North Rd, now 1248 Denman. Edward and Harriet ran the grocery store and the family lived above the shop. 8 North Rd was built in 1891, but then rented for several years.
Tenants: 1891-92: Expressman John William Tyrrell/Terrill.
1894: Cigarmaker Joshua Levy, who had worked with Walter.

Walter Nathan was first a cigar maker for manufacturer Joseph Lewis Levy, then by 1890 was the proprietor of Little Wonder Cigar Store at 120, then 112 Government St. In 1889-90 Walter lived at 185, now 2221 Fernwood Rd with William and Mary Maslen (1260 Denman St). He then lived with his family above the store and in 2213 Spring. Walter died in 1894, and his sister Harriet died in the Point Ellice Bridge disaster, 26 May 1896. In 1896 Edward and his son William moved into 8 North Rd, now 1252 Denman, and Edward took over the cigar store. William was a carpenter, expressman and warehouseman. Edward died in 1906, and William sold the two lots. In 1907 he married Mary Campbell Anderson from Glasgow, Scotland.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

Owners: 1906: J.A. Dees subdivided and sold the buildings separately, 1252 Denman to George Hughes. 1908-c.1916: David Dickson England (b. Edinburgh, SCT, 1864) and Sarah (née Jordan, b. Southport, ENG, 1859-1945) rented it out. David studied landscape gardening for five years with the Liverpool Horticultural Co, and married Sarah in 1884. They emigrated to Winnipeg in 1893, and David worked on the city’s first parks. In 1907 they came to Victoria, and he became City park superintendent. In 1911 he began working with the BC government in Vancouver, laying out the grounds for the Courthouse and the Normal School. In 1912 he was the landscape gardener for Government House in Victoria, and the next year, Superintendent of Government Grounds for BC. David was a chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, and a member of BPOE, FOE, COF, and LOL, as well as Victoria’s Camosun Club. Sarah was a widow when she died in Vancouver.

Tenants: 1912-14: Spencers’ drygoods store clerk Charles Joseph Richard Boulton, just arrived from England. In 1916 he married widow Jessie Esther Ash. They moved to Vancouver, where Charles was chief claims clerk with the CPR until retiring in 1940.

Owners: 1921-27: Thomas Samuel Burkmar (1856-1935) and Annie Eliza (née Cousins, 1863-1934). Thomas was a Victoria Machinery Depot (VMD) employee, then a night watchman.
1928: Colin William Leslie and Neneia Chalmers. Colin was a show card painter and then an elevator operator in various banking buildings.
1929-41: Bert Harvey (1893-1947), a shoemaker at 2208½ Fernwood Rd, and Emily (née Venner, b. Sussex, ENG, 1890-1985) came from England in 1919. Bert was a veteran of both WWI and WWII.

1942-43: Gertrude Edith Bain, whose husband Melford Frederick Bain was on WWII active service. Melford’s peacetime occupation was farming. They both died in White Rock, BC.
1946-52: Retired farmer Jacob Ezra Miller (b. Milmay, Bruce County, ON, 1876-1952) and his son Arnold Andrew Miller (1912-1962), a driver with Victoria Paving Co. Jacob was of Dutch descent. The house was duplexed shortly after Jacob’s death.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• Fernwood History

• Fernwood Heritage Register


• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume One: Fernwood & Victoria West