HISTORIC HOUSES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22200, 29 August 1935, Page 8

HISTORIC HOUSES

, MILITARY COTTAGES ONEHUNGA AND PANMURE [ PRESERVATION SUGGESTED The advances made in Louse construction are strikingly illustrated by the type of cottage occupied by the founders of Onehunga, Otahuhu, Panmure and One of the few remaining pensioners' cottages is in Albert Street, Onehunga, and, except for its iron roof, and front door, it conveys an accurate impression of what theso cottages were like when erected nearly 90 years ago. At first sight this cottage appears to bo one single tenement, but it is really two separate dwellings, each containing two rooms and an attic. They were known in the early days as ''Siamese" houses. As far as is known, only threo of these primitive structures remain of the hundred or more that were erected in Onehunga. Another is in use as an infant Sunday school in the grounds of the Presbyterian Church, and another, still tenanted, is in Victoria Street. They are in an. excellent state of preservation. There are a few more of these old cottages at Panmure. Onehunga, Otahuhu, Panmure and Eowick were in 1847-49 composed almost entirely of these cottages. They were built by the Government from one design for the military settlers known as the Royal New Zealand Fencibles. The four sites were chosen for their proximity to the main waterway used by /the natives when travelling in their great war canoes between the Bay of Islands and the , Waikato, hauling their canoes overland at Westfield and Wai'uku. The presence of an armed force thus forming a chain across 1 the isthmus not only acted as a deterrent to the Ngapuhi raiders, but also provided a trained body of men for the protection of the young city. The men chosen for this service were veteran soldiers who had served in China, Afghanistan, India and at sea. acre of land, conditionally on attendEach was granted a cottage and an . ing drill on 12 days a year, and a Church parade every Sunday for seven years, and were paid Is 3d a day in addition to their pensions. Among the first pensioner ships to arrive in Auckland were the Ramilies in 1847, and the Oriental Queen in 1819. Two or three passengers by the latter still survive, but all who came by the Eamilies are dead. i A suggestion has been made for the purchase, before it is too late, of one of these pioneer cottages as a historic grelic, to be /preserved as a memorial '*by the thousands of descendants of tho old Fencibles.