Selwyn Times: October 14, 2020

Wednesday October 14 2020 Selwyn Times
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
NEWS 15
Support needed to repair historic cottage
• By Chris Barclay
TIPTREE COTTAGE is a rare
colonial cob farmhouse dealing
with a familiar predicament, as
the Yaldhurst museum faces an
uncertain future for the third
time since its construction
around 1862.
One of the oldest surviving
buildings in Canterbury, the
category one heritage listed cottage
needs $155,000 to complete
earthquake-related repairs
almost a decade after Tiptree
sustained structural damage.
Most of the upgrade has been
completed through support from
the Christchurch City Council,
Heritage New Zealand and private
benefactors.
But finance is still required to
mend several major cracks in the
cob before Tiptree’s antiquated
architecture can be accessed by
the public for the first time since
2010.
Tiptree Cottage trustee Kate
McLeod said Heritage New Zealand
will stump up 50 per cent of
the amount providing trustees
can source the remainder so cob
specialist Mike Jackson can complete
work on walls made from a
mixture of straw, clay and water.
McLeod thought the use of
cob was possibly dictated by the
lack of timber on the Canterbury
Plains; the cottage originally
had a thatched roof before it was
replaced by corrugated iron in
1900.
She said the funding drive was
not the first time Tiptree has
been the focal point of adversity
since it was built by English
farmer William Savill.
Savill died seven years after
the cottage was built in a style
reminiscent of his native Essex -
Tiptree is a village in the county
– leaving widow Eliza Jane to
wage a legal battle.
In spite of being a spouse, she
was not entitled to the property
so she sailed back to England to
PLEA:
Tiptree
Cottage
trust
member
Kate
McLeod, a
descendant
of the
property’s
builder
William
Savill, has
appealed
for support
to enable
earthquake
repairs to be
completed.
PHOTO:
GEOFF
SLOAN
fight for ownership.
After a four-year saga she was
allowed to purchase the property
for £STG330.
“If it hadn’t been for that, the
cottage wouldn’t be there now,”
McLeod said.
Then, during the 1930s, Tiptree
was used as a shearing shed,
leading to significant wear and
tear when sheep rubbed against
the cob.
The Gregg family – three are
also members of the trust –
bought the dilapidated cottage
in 1963, rescuing it from ruin
and gradually converting it to a
museum, which opened to the
public in 1979.
Many of Savill’s possessions
were on display.
McLeod, a descendant of
the couple, remembers visiting
Tiptree as a teenager, and the
carriage clock still rang a bell.
“That came over from
England and in the lounge room
wall there’s a niche that’s been
cut into the cob which is exactly
the right size for the clock,” she
said.
McLeod joined the trust
in 2016 and hopes to one day
expand the attraction once the
lease on an adjacent quarry
expires and the land is reconstituted.
“The surrounding farm had
fish ponds and orchards, that’s
now a quarry and the long-term
plan is to get hold of a bit of
that and do a larger agricultural
museum.”
•The trust can be reached
at contact@tiptreecottage.
com