33 Seymour Avenue

Seymour Avenue is named after Henry Seymour’s daughter, Fanny.  Henry Seymour arrived in Nelson in 1842 with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Fanny. Alfred Fell, another New Zealand Company settler had arrived months earlier. Together Fell and Seymour set up as merchants and later as land agents and land speculators. They purchased twenty acres of land on the upper slopes of the city. This estate was bordered by the Brook Stream to the east, the Seymour Oak and Bronte Street to the north and back up the Brook Valley and a significant part of the northern Grampians. The same year Fell married Fanny Seymour (Henry's daughter). The two men also owned the land on which Blenheim was later built.

History of the House

Clements Family

George and Violet Clements were early long-term residents of 33 Seymour Avenue.  Their son Lionel Clements (now aged ninety) was told that he was born in the house in 1927. Lionel had an older brother, Harold and a younger sister, Maeva. George Clements was a bus driver for Newmans Transport. 

Lionel Clements has many fond memories of growing up in Seymour Avenue, including making dams in the Brook Stream which runs along the back of the property.  “We used to block it up ‘til we got a pool big enough to swim in – it would stay like that for half the summer until there was a big rain,” he says.  Lionel also recalls getting shouted at as a child for playing on the property belonging to “Old Rout” – lawyer William Rout who at that time owned nearby Warwick House.  Lionel grew up to be a builder/joiner and completed some renovation work on 33 Seymour Avenue for his parents.

Violet Clements lived in the house right up until her death in 1966.  George Clements had passed away a few years earlier.  

In later years the section was subdivided and the house has since changed hands several times, most recently in 2017.

Style and Construction

This plain, square bungalow style house is part of a group of similar houses in a street setting of houses from the early 20^th century.

‘California bungalow’ is a style of residential architecture that was popular across the United States, and to varying extents elsewhere, from around 1910 to 1939. 33 Seymour Avenue is a great example of a “transitional” house which is villa in substance but bungalow in manner. By about 1918 in New Zealand, the villa style was out of fashion and many builders were working from imported plan books from America which buyers could select their preferred house designs from.

Transitional houses were still planned as villas and clad in weatherboard or brick, but the rooves were flatter and boxed eaves gave way to exposed rafter ends without fascia boards. Although the bungalow style used plain and simple finishes, there was still a surprising amount of decoration, including features such as the scalloped ends of barge boards, rows of projecting blocks and gable walls - often shingled.

This house is a typical California bungalow with a low pitched roof, large overhangs, exposed rafter ends and casement windows. 

This information was prepared for the Nelson Cancer Society Heritage Homes Tour 2018 (updated 2021)