Heritage Register
James Bay

634 Avalon Road (ex-8 Avalon Rd)
Old Park Cottage

Built 1890
Heritage-Designated 1977

For: John & Fanny Nichols

Builder: John Nichols

ARCHITECTURE:

Old Park Cottage was originally a one-storey, hip-roofed Queen Anne Cottage; a large hip-roofed dormer was added on the left side in the 1980s. The house has a hip-roofed, angled, cutaway bay on the right front, and an original angled bay under the new dormer on the left side. The front door with stained-glass lights and transom window is sheltered by a small gable on brackets with a round-headed arch; the gable sits on the hip-roofed porch. The freize, similar to 674-76 Battery St, James Bay, is unusual in being coved and having a decorative metal trim along its lower border around the house. The house has one-over-one, double-hung windows, is clad in drop siding, and has a corbelled brick chimney. One of the original twin chimneys was sacrificed for the dormer addition. This house was built by carpenter/joiner John Nichols for $1,750.


ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

1890-99: John and Fanny Nichols came from England. They left Victoria before the 1901 census.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

1901-02: Alfred Edward Allen, proprietor of Fit Reform Wardrobe.

1903-16: Annie (née Linklater, b. Orkney Isles, SCT c.1837-1916), widow of Frederick Widdowson, Sr, and George Logan (b. Sutherland, SCT c.1839-1903) married in Victoria in 1878. George was a master mariner, then a miner on Vancouver Island’s west coast, and a member of the AOUW. In 1891, Annie’s son Fred (624 Avalon Rd) was using the name Logan, and his friend Fred Jackson (619 Avalon Rd) boarded with them. Fred went back to using Widdowson and built a home next to his mother’s in 1904. Her daughter Elizabeth, an epileptic, was sent to Essondale provincial hospital, and died there in 1918 at 36.

1921-30: Land surveyor Martin Ramsey came from London, ENG, in 1911. He died in 1946 at 72, a resident of the Pacific Club.

1939-41: Margaret Maze (née Martin, b. Belfast, IRL 1882-1965), her son Robert, a salesman for W&J Wilson, and his wife Dymphna (née Owens). Margaret was the widow of Thomas Maze, who at 30 joined the CEF in September 1915. He died on Vimy Ridge in December 1917, and was buried at Villiers. He had been ill, but wouldn’t take sick leave, requesting instead to return to the trenches with his comrades. Margaret’s last home was the Glenshiel Hotel (606 Douglas St, James Bay).

1943-46: Harold Stride, an orderly at St. Mary’s Priory, and Madge (née Palmer) were married in the Salvation Army Citadel in Victoria in 1920, when Harold was a printer.

1947-54: BCCSS engineer William B. Harris and Elaine.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION & IMAGES:

• James Bay History

• James Bay Heritage Register



• This Old House, Victoria's Heritage Neighbourhoods,
Volume Two: James Bay