Old cob cottage is now a museum

Press, 30 January 1986, Page 21

Old cob cottage is now a museum

By

TESSA WARD

A team of historic enthusiasts has breathed new life into a robust old cob cottage in the rugged Amur! country of North Canterbury, allowing it to house local treasures carefully collected over the past 38 years. Sheltered by the gentle leafy slopes of a Glens of Tekoa hill, west of Balmoral Forest, the 128-year-old pioneering cottage has recently been weather-proofed and provided with an intact chimney once again.

Inside the back room, now called the records room, a comprehensive catalogue lists all the historic items attractively displayed in the house. Many of them are the family collection of Mrs Shona Mcßae, who lives on the station, while others have been given to

her by local residents over the years. Mrs Mcßae has already written about the life and work of her husband’s great-grandfather, William Mcßae, in a recently published book, “Gone For Good.” Her historic interest also surfaces in her other books, notably “By The Braes of Balquether.”

As early as 1948 she and her husband, W. D. (Bill) Mcßae, decided to repair one of the front rooms next to the back closet to harbour a family museum. The original clay floors were replaced by wooden boards, and a wooden ceiling was built under the beech shingles. Each wall was whitewashed, new glass set in the windows, and the veranda strengthened. Ail four generations of Mcßaes who have lived at Glens of Tekoa have held on to the family records, including diaries, maps, photographs, and papers. They reveal a wealth of colonial history.

About 15 years ago a young enthusiast for things archaic, Charles MacDonald, helped Mrs Mcßae to establish a rudimentary catalogue and arrange the growing museum collection in two rooms of the cottage. Another young man with an historic bent, Simon Coley, also helped Mrs Mcßae to sift through the items and up-date

the catalogue two years ago. A hillside fire threatened to engulf all the painstaking work soon after. Mrs Mcßae recalls how her family removed everything — "and I mean every item” — from the cottage. Rain came to their rescue, and Simon Coley later spent hours helping Mrs Mcßae to re-establish an even higher grade museum complete with new shelves, plastic coverings, and glass showcases. In 1984, Mrs Mcßae told a Historic Places Trust cob restorer, David Studholme, that she was worried the chimney would collapse if it was not soon repaired. At Mr Studholme’s request a Lands and Survey Department officer at Hanmer Springs, Graham Spiers, made the repairs using his experience of restoring the old Acheron Accommodation House.

More recently, the Canterbury regional technical officer for the trust, Ivan Taylor, has made the stout cottage weather-proof. Mrs Mcßae thinks it likely that the cob cottage’s two large front

rooms with fireplaces and the lean-to back rooms were built using a cob and shutter method. “A mixture of clay was probably rammed between some boards, left to dry hard, and then the boards were raised for installing the next layer above,” she says. “I think the original roof would have been made with tussock thatch over beech rails, and the windows covered over with sacking or newspaper during bad weather. “Wooden shingles later replaced the tussock while a bullock dray hauled glass for miles

overland for the windows. A supporting inner wall was later added which divided the front room.”

Instead of wattle and daub, the Mcßaes probably used beech, manuka, and mud to achieve a similar effect, Mrs Mcßae says. Two end rooms were later added, using the cob block method.

“The family lived in the cob cottage for only seven years after which it was empty for many years, so it is rather amazing how well it has stood the test of time,” Mrs Mcßae

says. In 1865, the Mcßae family moved into a brick homestead built by Jas Fawcett, who constructed the Ham homestead. The remains of the old kiln, used to make the bricks, are part of the station’s historic appeal. Over the years more modern facilities have been added to the courtyard-shaped house. It originally had only one cold water tap in an outside washhouse and a copper over a fireplace for boiling hot water.