Our oldest cob cottage?

Press, 21 February 1986, Page 17

Our oldest cob cottage?

By

TESSA WARD

A familiar landmark in Nelson, believed to be the oldest cob cottage in New Zealand, has recently been restored for use as a new art and craft gallery. Many tourists and local people have already stopped, to view the new William Higgins Gallery since the solid two-storey cottage, close to State highway six at Spring Grove, was restored and opened in January. Built between 1845 and 1849, the cottage is among the earliest cob buildings in the New Zealand Historic Places Trust archives and possibly the country’s oldest. Since buying the cottage in 1965, Baigent Forest Industries, Ltd, have considered a restoration project for it which began to take form early last year when other groups offered their support The first move was made by the Spring Grove Co-operative who sought to use the cottage as a retail outlet. Consultations with the Nelson Historical Society and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust followed. Two cob restorers with the trust, Mr David Studholme and Mr Jim Gardner, gave the

thumbs up for the sound structure of the cottage saying that restoration could confidently proceed.

Baigents began by renewing the rafters and replacing the iron roof with wooden shingles. Volunteer help was offered by the co-operative, who were allowed to display and sell their art and craft in the cottage provided they met the expenses of applying for a specified departure. With $16,000 from Baigents and another $2OOO from the trust, the major work was completed in September thanks to a combined effort by the trust and other volunteers on the cottage walls.

Inside the cottage, the cooperative relaid the floor and internal linings with materials supplied by Baigents. Later this year, the company plans to build an overhanging verandah on the cottage and upgrade the car parking and access facilities. The cottage’s history began in

1843 when a surrounding area of 50 acres was owned by an English surgeon, Joseph Bennett, who is believed to have remained in England. His 50 acres was Crown Grant 65 at south Waimea.

According to the 1845 census by the New Zealand Company four persons occupied section 65 — William Higgins, William Eves, William Kew and Samuel Tilly. The 1849 census shows that Mr Higgins lived in an earth house with a thatched roof and the trust considers it probable that this is the same house owned by Baigents. William Higgins and his wife, Mary, and two small children came to New Zealand on the Clifford, arriving in Nelson in 1842. The Bristol couple were not related to another Higgins family which settled in the region. Although they had three sons and a daughter, only Mrs Higgins’s daughter, Mary, from her previous marriage to Mr John

White, survived and took the surname, Higgins. It is thought that she met her husband, John Taylor, who was a Somerset bricklayer, when he helped William Higgins build the twostorey cob cottage. According to early deed records, Bennett transferred section 65 in two parts to William Higgins and William Eves in 1858 and Mr Higgins subsequently subdivided his land. He, sold a northern portion to his son-in-law, John Taylor, and a southern portion to William Hodgson. Married in 1858, Mary and John lived with their 10 children in a cob cottage north of the Higgins cottage, still occupied by Dorothy and David Watson. Mrs Watson has been preparing a history of Spring Grove with the help of others. The settlement once boasted a hotel, police station, post office, several shops and staging post stables for Newmans coaches. After William Higgins’s death in 1891 his property was sold to Gordon Ingram, and there were several subsequent owners. Mary and John Taylor’s son, Edward, is believed to have lived in the Higgins cottage with his wife May (nee Palmer). Edward’s sister, Charlotte White Baigent was bom in the cottage, according to a local historian. During the early 1950 s an elderly bachelor from Blenheim, Mr Adams, lived in the cottage. For several years after his death it was used as a hay bam.