DESCRIPTION: The uniform design of the building disguises the fact that the cottages were built in three stages. Thomas Rusden, a stone mason by trade, bought the site in June 1856 and is assumed to have been the builder/designer. An advertisement for an auction held ten months earlier suggests that the site was vacant at the time. Cottage one appears as a long narrow building on a photo dating from 1857. Little is known of Thomas Rusden. A person by that name was the master mason for construction of St. Mary's Church, New Plymouth (begun in 1845) and was also involved in construction of the "Dead House" (1846), a building used in conjunction with the Colonial Hospital New Plymouth. The earliest reference in the Auckland area appears to be a Thomas Rusden travelling from Great Barrier Island in 1853, however, it is not known whether these are one and the same person. By 1865 the front portion of cottage two (one room up and one room down) had been constructed, however, in the same year Rusden defaulted on his mortgage repayments. The property was bought at auction by Samuel Viall a miner from Great Barrier Island. It was not until 1882 that the rear two rooms of the second cottage were built giving the building the form recognised today. If not used as two cottages prior to 1882, the building was recorded as two houses by 1886, the year John Slatter, "a gentleman", purchased the property. Between 1894 and 1931 the property changed hands frequently although for most of their existence the cottages appear to have been let rather than occupied by the various owners. Between 1931 and 1966 the owners were the Pezaro family who's cigar factory occupied an adjoining property to the rear, on Wakefield Street. Over time occupiers of the cottages have included artisans of various kinds, a labourer, a painter, a carter and a plasterer. The cottages continued to serve as residential accommodation until late in the 1940s when commercial development caught up with what had been an inner city residential area. Thereafter they were put to a number of uses; in the 1970s as a gallery and for a short time in the early 80s as "The Corporal's Restaurant". In 1980 the cottages were threatened by demolition. Although protected as historic buildings under the District Scheme, the owners sought a Scheme Change which would have enabled the site to be used for parking and loading purposes in conjunction with a property to the rear on Wakefield Street. As a result of the then-owner's unsuccessful appeal to the Planning Tribunal, the cottages were subdivided from the remainder of the site and purchased by the council who subsequently re-sold them.