‘The home of Mr and Mrs William Bishop, Maitai Valley’

‘The home of Mr and Mrs William Bishop, Maitai Valley’

Charles Heaphy’s 1844 watercolour shows the efforts of a Nelson couple to create an English garden. For many settlers, beauty and a sense of familiarity came from replacing the New Zealand bush with the shrubs and annuals of ‘home’. This display of flowers was only two years after the settlers arrived in Nelson. It is possible that the scene is in Nile Street, not the Maitai Valley.