Set in historic Anglesea Street, Arrowtown, a well preserved cottage sits in manicured grounds. This weatherboard cottage has high aesthetic values and contributes to the heritage character of Arrowtown, one of New Zealand’s best-preserved gold mining towns. It is one of several small nineteenth century cottages on Anglesea Street, in the residential area south of Buckingham Street, Arrowtown’s historic main thoroughfare. Other examples include neighbouring No. 10 Anglesea Street, No’s 9 and 11 Anglesea Street directly opposite, and No. 21 Anglesea Street, on the corner with Merioneth Street, all Category 2 historic places. Although humble and utilitarian, the cottage stands as a testament to the development of Arrowtown, from ragtag mining settlement to historic tourist attraction.

The first record of a cottage on this site is the Council rates records of 1878. In 1877 the property was sold to J.B. Neal, machine manager for the Homeward Bound Company at Macetown. Neal took out a mortgage in 1878, probably to finance the erection of a cottage.

Neal’s home was typical of early timber framed cottages which had a symmetrical rectangular plan; as wide as two rooms and a hallway, with a central front door. The sash windows, the symmetry, and simplicity of the cottage evoke the Georgian period. It was constructed of timber framing, weatherboard cladding and a corrugated iron roof.

Neal soon defaulted on the mortgage and the mortgage holders sold the property in 1880 to a Mr Corkhill. Corkhill may have rented out the house; in 1890 he still owned the property but J.F. Healey was the occupier who paid the rates.

In 1903 Richard Joseph Cotter Jnr (1872-1934) bought the cottage. Cotter was the son of Richard Cotter, one of the earliest and most prominent miners at the Arrow. Richard junior had an extensive storekeeping and butchering business at Arrowtown and at Bullendale. He was a large buyer of stock from the Hawea and Southland districts, and supplied the bulk of the mining population at Bullendale and Skippers Point with stores and meat. Cotter was also a Member of Arrowtown’s Borough Council and was described as a ‘young man imbued with thorough colonial energy’. The cottage was home to his wife Mary (called Polly) and their two infants. Polly died in 1905, aged 30, and two years later Richard sold the cottage a Mr Kain.

Kain owned the cottage until 1918 when he sold to John Grant, shepherd. In 1929 the property passed into the hands of Arrowtown miner, Albert Beale. In 1964 it transferred to Hazel and Herbert Wohlers of Invercargill and in 1994 to the current owners.

In 2008 the owners renovated the cottage. The original windows had at some point been replaced with alloy windows. The Hamiltons replaced these with timber sashes and frames. Wall partitions were removed to open up spaces and, where possible, heritage fabric from the partitions was reused. An addition was attached to the rear of the cottage.

A small concrete garage on the site was retained. Its small size and form is an expression and reminder of the early days of motor car ownership in Arrowtown. It is also of unusual construction: a timber frame, into which relocatable timber shuttering had been fitted, supported the thin concrete walls as they were poured. Its method of construction appears to be transitional between a conventional concrete walled building and a stucco building.