This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1993. This report includes text from the original Proposal for Classification considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. The significance of the Whare lies in its intimate association with the Purau Homestead and subsequently the history of Diamond Harbour. The Whare was built at approximately the same time as the Homestead (c.1853) by station hands of the first owner, Robert Rhodes. The Gardiner family brought the homestead in 1874 and it has remained in this family for five generations. The Whare preserves a once common vernacular form of building, a simple gabled timber frame outhouse with lean-to verandahs, and is one of the oldest such buildings in New Zealand. The Whare is an important, surviving early colonial archetype and forms an important part of the group of buildings at Purau.