A FAMOUS RELIC

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1934, Page 6

A FAMOUS RELIC

CAPTAIN COOK'S COTTAGE

TO BE REBUILT AT

MELBOURNE

(From "Tht Post's" Raprnmtitlv*.) ■ LONDON, December 20. . Workmen have just begun to dismantle Captain Cook's cottage at Great Ayton, near Middlesbrough) and in due course this relic'of tho great explorer will be bound for Melbourne, where it will be erected and preserved as a memorial. When last June tho cottage was put up for sale tho Government, of Victoria purchased it for £800, in order .that jpt might be shipped to Melbourne, and set up in a place of honour ready for next year's centenary celebrations. Even tho ancient ivy which for many years has covered its walls is to be kept. A few weeks ago it was taken down and carefully preserved at a Darlington nursery, and it will be replanted after the house -has been rebuilt. The cottage has been surveyed; every brick and beam have been numbered under skilled supervision, so that it can be erected in identical form. The dismantling ha» brought to light an oldfashioned mason's chisel and quaint latches of 17th century design. As tho bricks are removed they are being packed in boxes. Modern additions to the old house aro being removed) and an inglenook and fireplaco is to be built into it, just as it was in the explorer's day. It is expected that the work will not be finished until the end of February. • ■ 1. ' iIT Great Ayton is saturated with evidences of the explorer's boyhood, for there lies buried there Mr. Skottowe, who took James Cook under .his. wing, sent him to the village school, paid' his fees, and later .realised his early ambitions to be a sailor by apprenticing him to a Whit by shipowner. Captain Cook's father lived in this little cottage for many years, and it is believed that tho navigator himself returned to it between his voyages, ' and spent two months there before he set out.on. the last.fateful trip which was to end;in his death at the hands of tho natives on a Hawaiian beach. The navigator's mother is buried in the neighbouring churchyard, and close by is the Michael Postgate School, which he attended from the age of 8 to 13. Over the door one leads that the school was built by Michael Postgate in 1703, and rebuilt 80 years later. The school now houses a small museum of Cook relics. ,

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