29 Wallace Place (circa 1850s-60s)

This cottage is constructed in the distinctive 'Saltbox' style, with a steeply pitched roof, the rear being longer than the front. This cottage has perhaps the steepest roof pitch of any of the surviving board and batten cottages. The building has been significantly renovated, although it appears the front section is largely original. The interior linings and some of the framing appear to have been replaced.

It is unclear if the cottage has always been clad in vertical board and batten, however based on its style, it was probably constructed in the 1860s or 1870s. The cottage is present in aerial images from the 1940s and 1950s.

Of interest is the proximity of 29 Wallace Place to the No. 3 Blockhouse erected in 1860 at the Eastern end of Wallace Place, approximately 200m away, and also the No. 2 Blockhouse, formerly located near the old Barrett Street Hospital Buildings.

This cottage has an almost identical profile to the surviving Pahitere Blockhouse (now a farmhouse) near Ōākura  - also built in the distinctive 'Saltbox' style, and prefabricated from kauri in Auckland; however, the Pahitere Blockhouse (along with most blockhouses) were originally clad in plain horizontal weatherboards. Nigel Prickett notes that both the No. 2 and No. 3 blockhouses were probably single-storey buildings.

Related items:

DEED5 Wallace Place (1878), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP1147 Sheet 1 (1898), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki Land Deed Index I4 Page 378 Sub Lot 4 (Archives New Zealand)