My Books: New Zealand House & Cottage

Saint Publishing published this book and, associated with it, a number of calendars on the same theme. The subjects are from all over the country, the oldest dating back to the very beginnings of colonized New Zealand (mid-nineteenth century).

The front cover illustration (above) is of 'The Cuddy' a thatched cottage built by the Studholme family at Waimate in the South Island. The labrador is the modern Studholmes' friendly pet, the lady patting the dog is my wife, Patricia, who helped me enormously with all of the books I have written.

I should be so lucky!

New Zealand House & Cottage has been out of print for a long time but still turns up in second hand bookshops and websites like ABE books. Also on TradeMe and EBay. I have none left for sale.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

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
.

N.Z. House & Cottage 11. The Cuddy, Waimate

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.

THE CUDDY, TE WAIMATE

The Cuddy suffers somewhat from being so picturesque. It’s the stuff that calendars are made of, thatched, honeysuckled and charming in its old style garden. But its prettiness is a fortuitous side-effect and belies its pioneer beginnings when the need for shelter far outweighed artistic considerations.

The construction, typical of the period, is of the original vertical totara slab plugged with wattle and daub, but its brick chimney superseded one of clay and stake, and its roof, when I called at the end of 1996, had just been re-thatched in English style with rushes from a local swamp (in Maori, Waimate means ’stagnant water’) and was expected to last another thirty years.* Its first thatch was of snowgrass which was later replaced by others of corn straw.

The cottage was built in 1854 by the Studholme brothers, Michael, John and Paul who had arrived in Lyttelton from Cumberland three years before. It gets its name from a small cabin on a ship and probably reminded them of their voyage. Paul soon returned to England but his brothers lived in the Cuddy for six years while they developed the 98,000 acres (40,000ha) of Te Waimate Station.

When Michael first brought his wife, Effie, home she was dismayed by the accommodation and wrote:
‘We inspected the Cuddy…The floor was of beaten clay, which was worn into depressions here and there, so that in setting a chair there was trouble in arranging the legs so as to stand firmly… There were two small windows and one large sod fireplace: above the latter M’s guns, stockwhips etc. were arranged. A couple of stools cut from the round of a tree completed the furniture. Certainly there was no room for me there…’
Effie had brought a rose from Christchurch in her saddle bag and it was planted in the garden beside the Cuddy where its scions grow to this day: her side-saddle is still in the cottage in company with some contemporary pots, pans and furniture.

The one kilometre avenue from the main road to the cottage is lined with English oaks planted in 1864. It leads also to the site of the old homestead, destroyed by fire in 1928, and the five acres of gardens containing magnificent sequoias, cedars of Lebanon, red and white pines and Oregon firs.

*The Cuddy and Rhodes Cottage, both in South Canterbury, are the only two thatched buildings in the care of the Historic Places Trust.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

.