From issue:Spring 2003

by Victoria Bartle

The Nelson locals are friendly even if their houses are a permanent source of curiosity for passing tourists.

Jeanie and Chalky White are used to folk peering in their front window. The peerers are not peepers but tourists who, like many who have heard of the historic South St in Nelson, assume the tiny houses in the inner-city cobbled street are more of a life-sized museum piece where no one lives.

"We just wave a hello‚ and smile when we're sitting here in the front room," says 80-year-old Chalky (nicknamed for his surname). "Some people get such a fright to see us there, they get very redfaced and embarrassed and rush away."

The Whites bought Number 8 South St in 1984, having rented it for a while and deciding "it just had a good feeling about it." They had come to New Zealand from England in 1971, intending to live in Christchurch where Chalky, a nurse, had a job waiting for him."We didn't much like Christchurch - it was so flat and we couldn't see the point in coming all the way to a place that people described as an English city," Jeanie laughs. "We came to visit a friend in Nelson and liked it here so much we stayed."

After a time "out in the suburbs," the Whites discovered South St and Jeanie eventually found herself becoming a local historian. The more she delved into the history of the little house that she aptly named "Peppercorn Cottage," the more she found it was intertwined with the 12 other 19th century cottages of South St and the people who had lived in them since the first two-roomed cottage, now Number 13, was built in 1863.

Jeanie says that South St, one of seven heritage precincts in Nelson, is believed to be New Zealand's oldest entire street of homes still standing. Although many of them have been slightly altered or restored and one remodelled significantly after a fire, South St is essentially "original," often described by visitors as "a movie set."

After hundreds of hours pouring over documents in the Lands and Deeds office, Lands and Survey, local museums and newspaper files, and gleaning information from local residents and their relations, Jeanie wrote two books, Town Acre 456, Nelson, New Zealand, which was the official name of the South St area, and, seven years later, Windows on the Past. Jeanie's own copies of the books are well-thumbed, as she regularly refers to them to find answers for curious visitors.

Jeanie reckons South St is not the place for would-be home buyers, disconcerted by the idea of folk peering in the front window now and then, and it's not ideal for families wanting "a great barn of a house." Strikingly apparent is that it's definitely not for those who hanker for a huge and rambling front garden.

Most South St houses have nothing between their front doors and the cobbled pavement. The weatherboard front walls form the edge of the properties, and potted plants beside the front doors -or window boxes - suffice as front gardens."Out the back" or, in some cases, "to one side" of the houses are where can be found some truly English cottage gardens.

Fewer than half the houses are occupied by their owners. The others are rented out. But, for all the occupants, the heart of Nelson city is conveniently less than a block away.

The first owner of Town Acre 456 was the Honourable Constantine Augustus Dillon, who bought the land from the New Zealand Company in 1851. Construction of the houses did not begin until 1863, and most were built in 1865 and 1866.

South St has had a chequered past, with the houses being embellished in the 1930s and 1940s with porches, outhouses and covered-in sunrooms.

Jeanie White's research found some of the tiny houses were once home to amazingly large families; a number were home to women living alone and working as midwives. And, in the 1950s, South St even earned a reputation as something of a redlight district.

By 1980 the street was in a state of disrepair and when the Whites arrived in 1984 many of the houses were "quite ramshackle," according to Jeanie White. Even so, the residents had banded together and managed to prevent developers from demolishing the whole west side of the street to make way for a commercial complex. The local council cobbled the street and power lines were put underground.

One or two of the cottages have a new life as accommodation for tourists.

The South St cottages are in the Nelson City Council resource management plan as individually listed heritage properties - Class A and B buildings - and form a heritage precinct in the plan.

They are not listed with the Historic Places Trust, although the Central Region area co-ordinator for the Trust, David Watt, says the street is "a significant precinct."

Victoria Bartle is a freelance writer.