Coldicutt House is a rare and important remnant linked with the creation of small-scale farms on the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand’s first permanent colonial capital. Thought to have been built before 1864 - and possibly as early as the late 1840s or 1850s - the one-and-a-half storey, Georgian-style farmhouse formed the centrepiece of Manuka Grove, a holding established by English settlers William and Sarah Coldicutt in 1844. Of basalt construction, the residence is one of a relatively small number of stone dwellings of this period that survive in the Auckland region, and an even rarer example of a stone farmhouse on its original site. Its significance is enhanced by proximity to another of Auckland’s early stone residences, Upper Haxton Villa (1865), erected on land that had previously also formed part of Manuka Grove.

Coldicutt House lies within an important Māori cultural landscape on the Tāmaki isthmus whose fertile, volcanic soils are considered a taonga by tangata whenua. Prior to European arrival, major settlements at nearby Maungawhau (Mt Eden) and Te Tātua a Riukiuta (Three Kings) were associated with extensive stonefields for cultivating crops such as kūmara, and related activities - including in the vicinity of the Coldicutt House site. After the British Crown established Auckland as New Zealand’s colonial capital in 1840-1, these productive lands were subdivided for suburban farms to help feed the new town. In 1844, recent immigrants William and Sarah Coldicutt created an early such establishment in the Mt Eden area - an eight-hectare (20-acre) farm known as Manuka Grove.

William and Sarah Coldicutt and their children had arrived in New Zealand in 1842 from Birmingham, England. After occupying a raupo whare at Manuka Grove, it is thought that the family subsequently had the current basalt residence erected. As part of the improvement of European-style farms, surface stone was often cleared and re-used for field boundaries and other infrastructure. At Manuka Grove, local basalt was employed for house construction, creating what is now a rare surviving Auckland farmhouse built of stone. Of simple, Georgian appearance, the one-and-a-half storey building was designed with a distinctive, half-hipped roof. Internally, it incorporated four main downstairs rooms, an underlying cellar, and two additional rooms in the attic. Larger than some other stone farmhouses of the period, the dwelling may reflect the relative prosperity of Manuka Grove Farm, which by the mid-1860s had expanded to three times its original size. The early holding engaged in mixed agriculture, including small-scale crop raising, dairying and experimental hop growing, as well as orcharding in a walled garden.

Coldicutt House remained part of a working farm until the early twentieth century. Successive holders after 1864 - George Nairn, John Crawford and Robert Joughin - may have increasingly focussed on dairying, reflecting broader agricultural trends. Although Upper Haxton Villa was erected nearby in 1865, it was not until much later that the area lost its rural aspect as Auckland expanded. From 1911, the farm was subdivided. The farmhouse became a suburban cottage, surrounded by new residences on the Ellerton Estate, promoted for their healthy, edge-of-town location. Later additions to the cottage included a front portico and dormer windows in the 1950s. Interior renovations were carried out, retaining the main layout and notable early features including the building’s internal staircase, main fireplace and cellar. Recognised as an important local landmark, the place was briefly purchased in the mid-1970s by Mt Eden Borough Council for its heritage values. In 2020, the property was generously transferred by its private owner to a Trust dedicated to its long-term preservation. Coldicutt House has since remained in use as a private residence.