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Take a look at what they did to Prime Minister Helen Clark for New Zealand's 2008 election campaign!

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donovan@ihug.co.nz

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N.Z. House & Cottage 38. (Final). The Derelict

I wrote and illustrated ‘New Zealand House and Cottage’. It was published in 1997. It’s a snapshot of some historic New Zealand homes - both grand and modest - as they were preserved at the end of the 20th century. I decided to share some of the entries from the book from time to time on this blog.

The book contained 41 houses or cottage. This is the final page.

THE DERELICT

Over many years, I saw this farmhouse crumble. It stood in a paddock some distance from the highway in that gentle country south of Nelson where the weather is fine most days. Having drawn it yet again, from earlier reference, I went looking for it in order to discover its history but although I searched beside the recently realigned highway and old side roads I could neither find it nor where it had been. I conclude that it decayed to the point where it had to be demolished and with it, no doubt, went another little history. That is the fate of all houses, rich or poor, grand or simple. I am pleased that I was able, in passing, to capture just a few. 

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz
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N.Z. House & Cottage 37. Terrace Station, Hororata

I wrote and illustrated ‘New Zealand House and Cottage’. It was published in 1997. It’s a snapshot of some historic New Zealand homes - both grand and modest - as they were preserved at the end of the 20th century. I have decided to share some of the entries from the book from time to time on this blog.

TERRACE STATION, HORORATA

Memories of Terrace Station in the 1960s: dining surrounded by leather-bound volumes; sleeping in ‘Little Jericho’, one of two bedrooms at one extreme of the rambling house; skating on a farm pond wearing borrowed Victorian skates from a room full of old tennis racquets, croquet mallets and hickory skis; and riding in the 1911 Clement-Talbot that was bought new and is still at the house.

Our hosts in those days were Godfrey and Peggy Hall and I particularly remember my delight when, after I had spent some shivering time drawing the house from the same angle as in my watercolour, Peggy swapped two home-spun, hand-knitted sweaters for the sketch. I still have them; I can still smell the lanolin in them, the smell of the old sheep runs of the South Island.

Since then the Halls’ daughter, Kate, and her husband, Richard Foster have taken over and farmed the land and raised a family while labouring mightily to restore and maintain Terrace Station homestead and to document and preserve its history.

The house grew piecemeal but the earliest part, pre-fabricated in Australia, was built for the Studholmes (of Te Waimate fame) in the mid-1850s. John and Rose Hall bought Rakaia Terrace Station in 1862. A pragmatic Yorkshireman, he’d arrived in Christchurch in 1852 and became so deeply involved with local and colonial affairs that he later became prime minister - from 1879 to 1882. He and Rose extended and altered the house greatly to meet the needs of their family and by 1868 the house had doubled in size, including the distinctive three front gables.

Posterity might almost have lost the homestead but, fortunately, an economic depression dissuaded Hall from building a new house and led instead to a series of practical additions that culminated in 1890 with a superb, native timber refit of the entrance hall by Samuel Hurst Seager, the eminent Christchurch architect. John Hall was knighted in 1882 and died in 1907 whereupon Terrace Station passed to his son, Godfrey, then grandson Godfrey and, now, Kate and Richard Foster. In their hands the work goes on, while, in the entrance hall, an elegant watercolour time-table (artist unknown) reminds us that life in the home of statesmen-farmers, their families and descendants requires certain daily disciplines.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz
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N.Z. House & Cottage 36. Wyllie Cottage, Gisborne

I wrote and illustrated ‘New Zealand House and Cottage’. It was published in 1997. It’s a snapshot of some historic New Zealand homes - both grand and modest - as they were preserved at the end of the 20th century. I have decided to share some of the entries from the book from time to time on this blog.

WYLLIE COTTAGE, GISBORNE

I should explain ‘Mac’ before I go any further. When planning these texts I asked owners and administrators of properties to help with information and anything quirky that might be of interest. It was Jan Colbert of the Gisborne Museum and Arts Centre who pointed out Mac’s burial plaque and told me that ‘Mac’ (Museum and Arts Centre - get it?) made the museum and adjacent Wyllie Cottage his home, having been rescued from near death as a vagrant teenager. He died, having begged snacks and lorded it over staff and visitors for some years, in his feline dotage. His kidneys had packed up; all that junk food, I guess.

One thing you can do with old cottages that you can’t do with old cats is restore them. Wyllie Cottage (strikingly similar to the one in the NZ Historic Places Trust’s logo) was the first house of European design constructed on the Whataupoko bank of the Taruheru River in Gisborne. It was built in 1872 by James Ralston Wyllie and his wife Kate. As their family grew to eight children they extended the house but, interestingly, it never had a kitchen venting chimney and it’s thought that Kate, of Maori background, did her cooking outdoors. There’s nothing outstanding about the cottage but, restored, it is a good example of kauri-shingled vertical board and batten: pleasingly simple.

To make room for a larger house the cottage was removed in 1886 to its present site by its then owner, J.C. Dunlop. His wife ran a school in the cottage and it appears to have served as a school three times, the later schoolmarms being the Misses Evans and a Miss Aylmer. A dressmaker, Miss Simeon, also occupied it (I wonder whether she was related to the transient Captain Simeon of Lyttelton?). Eventually it was bought by W.D. Lysnar whose daughter, Winifred, sold the property, in 1954, to Gisborne City Council.

Thereafter Wyllie Cottage slowly decayed until, partly as a bloody-minded response to the bruited intention of the council to demolish it, the cottage was saved by public subscriptions. Restoration began in 1970 when it was found that the sagging building was not quite as bad as had been thought. Indeed, the biggest job was the restoration of the roof, which was done with shingles supplied by the Historic Places Trust.

As for Mac, he’s buried round the back, among the bedding plants.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
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