This generous suburban residence, probably constructed around 1910 for James and Elizabeth Penny on Ettrick Street in Invercargill, is built of concrete blocks manufactured by the prison inmates at Invercargill prison. It has aesthetic, historical, architectural and technological significance.

Until 1907, this section was part of a larger suburban block in the ‘Trafalgar Extension No. 1’. In August 1907 the title was issued to Elizabeth Penny, wife of storeman James Penny. Electoral rolls indicate that the couple had moved to Ettrick Street by 1911. They took out a mortgage on the property in 1908. The house, then, was probably built 1908-10. James Penny died in 1922, his wife two years later, but the house remained in the Penny family until 1953.

The house was built with concrete blocks made by inmates of Invercargill Prison. Hollow block construction in New Zealand dates from 1904, with the formation of the Wellington Hollow Concrete Block Company. The technology spread to Timaru, Whangarei and Auckland by 1907. Architect and historian Geoffrey Thornton records what hollow concrete blocks were being made by inmates of Invercargill prison by 1909, and that these were used in domestic dwellings.

Records from the 1980s identify Charles Lambeth as both architect and builder for the property, though no definite conformation has been found in other sources. Invercargill architects William Bremner and Charles Lambeth entered a partnership together and also set up the Property and Finance Co., producing a catalogue of plans of houses already built (1914), which included a range of concrete block houses. The pair dissolved the partnership in 1914. This house does not appear in the catalogue – though there is a double storey house with a similar turret in that catalogue, and there are examples using concrete block. In 2018, 347 Ettrick Street remains a private residence.