Early Akaroa settler and hotelier Captain James Bruce built twin neighbouring cottages on the corner of Bruce Terrace and Aubrey Street in the mid-1850s. The one and a half storeyed timber cottage located at 9A Aubrey Street, Akaroa was built for Bruce’s widowed brother-in-law John Donnet and Donnet’s daughters. The cottage pairing is considered to be among some of Akaroa’s most important historic groupings and this cottage, in particular, has a high degree of authenticity. It has aesthetic, architectural, cultural and historical significance.

Akaroa Harbour is a large, long harbour on the southern coast of Horomaka/Te Pātaka-a-Rākaihautū (Banks Peninsula). Tuhiraki (Mount Bossu) is the kō (digging stick) of the famous Waitaha explorer Rākaihautū. Akaroa was occupied by iwi such as Hāwea, Waitaha, Rapuwai, and Kāti Māmoe prior to the southern Kāi Tūhaitara migration to Canterbury. Te Ake was one of several Ngāi Tahu tūpuna (ancestors) who claimed land during this migration, placing his tokotoko at the head of the harbour. Akaroa continues to be a renowned mahinga kai (food-gathering area) for the local Kāi Tahu hapū based at the small kāika of Ōnuku which is located just to the south of Paka Ariki, Akaroa township.

By the early nineteenth century, Akaroa Harbour had become a favourite port of call for whaling ships. French whaler, Jean François Langlois became involved in land transactions in the area in the late 1830s, which eventually lead to the founding of the Nanto-Bordelaise Company and ultimately, in August 1840, French (and some German) settlers from the Comte de Paris landing at Paka Ariki/Akaroa. While the British had already annexed New Zealand by the time the settlers arrived, most stayed on and settled in the area. In the 1840s, the northern part of Akaroa was known as the ‘French Town’, while the southern part was the ‘English Town’. The latter was where Dundee-born former whaler James Bruce decided to establish one of Akaroa’s earliest hotels (Bruce’s Hotel, early 1840s) and settle both himself and eventually the family of his late sister, the Donnets. John Donnet (also spelt Donnett), a cooper and seafarer, had married Bruce’s sister, Margaret, in Scotland. In 1855, after Margaret’s death, the widowed Donnet and his five daughters and a son-in-law emigrated to join Bruce in Akaroa. Bruce had two identical cottages built on his town sections 75 and 76 in the mid-1850s, one for John Donnet and his unmarried daughters and the other for Donnet’s married daughter (Bruce’s niece), Isabella and her husband, engineer William Fogie Bruce (no relation to James). It would appear that this cottage (List No. 3345) was the one occupied by John Donnet and his unmarried daughters, since it was conveyed to him in 1860, while the married Isabella and William Bruce were in the cottage situated to the west.

Although its legal address is now 9A Aubrey Street, the timber cottage fronts Bruce Terrace at the southern part of Akaroa township. Diminutive in scale, it has a steeply pitched (now corrugated steel-clad) roof with a sharp triangular cross-gable flush with the main elevation - called a fronton in French, this is a typical feature of early Akaroa cottages. The cottage has a central timber-panelled front door flanked by two, three paned side hinged windows, and there is a lean-to at the rear. It also has a bull-nosed verandah, added at an unknown date, which features double verandah posts with cross bars.

After James Bruce died in 1858, both this and the neighbouring cottage was left jointly to Donnet and other members of the extended Bruce family. Electoral rolls in the 1860s show Donnet continued to live in the house. John Donnett (Donnet) died in May 1873. Both this and the cottage on Town Section 75 remained on the same Record of Title until 1992, when a cross-lease was established. Compared to its neighbour, this cottage at 9A Aubrey Street remains largely unmodified. The main change on the exterior is the addition of the bull-nosed verandah at a date unknown and, in the late 1990s, an extension at the rear to create another bathroom and sunroom.