Akaroa Historical Overview - Christchurch City Council

The single- or one-and-a-half-storey cottage is the norm of Akaroa’s 19 th century
domestic architecture. The use of dormers or small windows set in an end gable meant
attic spaces could be used for sleeping. Examples of these cottages are to be found
throughout the older parts of the town, notably on Rue Jolie south, on Percy and William
Streets and up Rues Balguerie and Grehan. There is also a small cluster of three early
cottages at the corner of Bruce Terrace and Aubrey Street (refer figures 5.4, 5.5 & 5.6).
Although Akaroa’s cottages and more modest houses were the homes of people of
slender means, as the 19 th century advanced even these cottages and smaller houses
were increasingly decorated or embellished for appearance or prestige rather than
utility, though never excessively or extravagantly. The almost universal use of timber for
dwellings gave builders and carpenters the opportunity to apply decorations in what
Fearnley describes as an inventive, light-hearted manner. 19
Figure 5.4. (Top left) The mis-named ‘Curate’s Cottage’ (because Akaroa never had a curate) on Aylmer’s Valley Road
is typical of the many surviving 19 th century cottages in Akaroa.
Figure 5.5 (Top right) One of the small group of historic cottages at the corner of Bruce Terrace and Aubrey Street.
The group is one of the most important, historically, in Akaroa.
Figure 5.6 (Bottom left) This Rue Jolie cottage is one of a number of surviving 19 th century cottages that give the
street a strongly historic character.
Figure 5.7 (Bottom right) The former Presbyterian manse on Rue Balguerie, built in the 1870s, is one of the larger of
Akaroa’s surviving 19 th century dwellings.
19 Fearnley, Unpublished manuscript, ch. 3
AKAROA HERITAGE OVERVIEW : SECTION 5 THE COLONIAL TOWN 1850 TO 1900 PAGE 38