Leaves From My Sketchbooks. 54. Stone Hut Remains, Allandale, New Zealand

I've searched frutlessly for some Internet history of this shed. I saw it among undergrowth some years ago and decided to draw it even though it was not a particularly interesting subject. But I think I might have preserved a bit of Lyttelton Harbour that's gone for ever.

I made a note on my drawing that reads: '9/7/1966. All that remains of a cottage which began as a wood hut for workmen on the Vigers property at Allandale. It was added to in stone in 1880 by Henry Jennings, a settler. For many years it belonged to William Garlick, was bought by Dunbier and was destroyed by fire in the 1950s being then 100 years old'.

© DON DONOVAN. donovan@ihug.co.nz 
www. don-donovan.blogspot.co.nz
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New Zealand Odyssey: Rural Barn, Leithfield, North Canterbury

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

This is so typically rural New Zealand that it might pass unnoticed. It's a barn/garage/shed or what you will at Leithfield, North Canterbury. It looked to me, in 1987, as if it hadn't been opened for many years, its timbers warped and the grass grown long. It reminded me of an old, forgotten garage in Governors Bay in which I glimpsed, through a crack, a Model T Ford. Who knows what might lie concealed within this country barn?

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

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