Story: Nelson region

Englishman Thomas Marsden arrived in Nelson with his wife Mary in December 1842. He bought 376 hectares of land at Stoke in 1848, making him the largest landowner in the Nelson province at the time. Marsden later built Isel House, shown here around 1887. The ladies with parasols, the gentleman with his safari helmet, and the trees and gardens all evoke an English rural Arcadia – which is what the early Pākehā settlers wanted to re-create in Nelson.