DESCRIPTION: On 2 June 1851 the Reverend Benjamin Woolley Dudley, who had arrived in Lyttelton as chaplain on board the 'Cressy' in 1850, purchased 50 acres of rural land (Rural Section 40) from the Canterbury Association. He had been vicar of a parish at Ticehurst in Sussex, hence the name Ticehurst Road bounding his section to the east, and was first incumbent at Lyttelton. Dudley immediately subdivided the land and on 17 June 1851 sold a quarter acre on the corner of Bridle Path and Ticehurst Road to Thomas Kent, a fellow passenger on board the 'Cressy', for £17. Only a few months later, having built the house, Kent sold the property to George Duncan Lockhart and Augustus Edward White for £80, the deed mentioning a newly erected dwelling house. White then sold his share to Lockhart. In 1857 Dr John Seager Gundry bought the property for £250, probably for rental purposes since for the most part he appears to have resided in Christchurch. Dr Gundry had been surgeon-superintendent on board the barque 'Steadfast' which had arrived in Lyttelton in 1851. In 1870 he sold to Captain Hugh McLellan, a master mariner from the Isle of Islay in Argyllshire, Scotland. Captain McLellan was appointed Lyttelton Wharf Master in 1873, deputy Harbour Master in 1874, and was the second Harbour Master appointed by the Lyttelton Harbour Board in 1877. As Harbour Master he would have been a figure of considerable standing in the community. He named the house 'Islay Cottage' after his birthplace, and this is the name under which the house is most commonly known today. The house remained in the hands of Captain McLellan's family until 1924. Since this time it has changed hands several times. The present owners purchased it in 1988.