New kids on the block

One of many responses I received to my article about the eastern
Nelson region known as Marlborough was from Nicki on the Gold Coast,
who queries the history of the Crow Hotel on Nelson Square in Picton.
Actually, Nicki, the Crow is only a tavern these days, having slipped
to that status in the early 1970s.
Until then it was the Clarendon Hotel, and its lounge bar was known
the Crow's Nest - very popular on Saturday nights with a three-piece
dance band (violin, saxaphone and drums) playing for an older and
respectable patronage.
The Crow's Nest came to be referred to affectionately as just the
Crow, and the Crow Tavern was the name adopted by the owners on the
establishment's loss of accommodation status.
There was for years a handsome great black cut-out silhouette of a
crow mounted on the verandah-top above the front entrance.
Then newcomers to town, two young couples in partnership, bought the
Crow in the late 1990s and, being ignorant of the old hostelry's
history, simply jumped to a conclusion and equated the word 'crow'
with crowing ... hence the ludicrously incongruous multi-coloured
rooster painted on the north wall.
It's a pity that newcomers to an historic town don't take the trouble
to bone up on the local history.

texan@texas.removethisbit.usa.com wrote in message news:<av8ttv8otkuvovn2oit6rfi23sjcckv16u@>. ..
> On 14 Dec 2003 13:14:13 -0800, aha_glad_sir2003@yahoo.ca (Johnny
> Stewart) wrote:
>
> >One of many responses I received to my article about the eastern
> >Nelson region known as Marlborough
>
> I used to live in Blenheim and at no time to the best of my knowledge,
> was Nelson ever a part of Marlborough.
>
> Cath


Quite correct, and nowhere have I said that it was. Indeed,
Marlborough gained its constitutional independence from Nelson, and
thus its provincial status, in 1859. These days, though, for
political administration and tourism purposes, it is effectively a
part of Nelson.
John