Somerset Place, Ponsonby, Auckland

The title of this story – “The Gunn’s of Somerset Place” is so we can differentiate between the many “Gunn” families in New Zealand. It also happens to be the home the family lived in during the most interesting period the family lived through.

8 Somerset Place – the address of the Gunn family – a relatively large home considering the times. Somerset Place ran off Howe Street heading south , just down from Hopetown Street and Karangahape Road, it runs along the side of the hill which Howe Street runs down.

The street no longer exists – having made way for a motorway. The street was a dead end street consisting of eleven dwellings – according to the Council planning maps all a “type 1W” – which indicates (if we are looking at the dwelling from the street) that we would see a single level ‘1’ wooden structure ‘w’ – in fact the house was up to 3 levels if you viewed the property from the rear of the section.

Somerset Place, 1939 just before demolition for the new motorway. The Gunn home is the house on the very right of this picture, we can only see the front left corner of the property – the other houses are (R-L) 6, 4, 2 and the back of the corner property on Howe Street – Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 558-4

Other homes of note in the same area were – 7 Somerset Place lived in by one of the sons during the same period, 44 Wellington Street which also features in this document – it is located at the bottom of Howe Street as you head for Victoria Park, other extended family lived at that address (I believe this was Annie’s parents’ home – and remained in the family for some time during this period). To add more confusion 43 Wellington Street becomes the home of Annie Vivian Gunn.

Somerset Place also features in the exploits of the Gunn brothers – a sack containing the cash box (from the Ponsonby Post Office), a jimmy, and three pistols were found at the dead end of this same street hidden in the bushes, and cash box (belonging to the New Lynn Post Office) was found under one of the floor boards, various business along Karangahape Road were duly visited out of hours by members of the family, who acquired goods found on these premises.

A number of Annie’s children and their spouses lived with the family at this same address – Frederick Skinner was arrested by the military police for going AWOL, Jean Borgolte was kicked out of this house after Dennis’ trial.

They say “if walls could talk” – I’m sure this home held some interesting family secret’s!

The view is from the Southern end of the street looking back up towards K Road. No 8 Somerset Place is on the left of the picture – we believe number 10 has already been demolished. The bush area to the left is the possible area where the Ponsonby Cash box was hidden. – Sir George Grey Collection.