Constructed in 1893 as a two storeyed timber residence, the building known as Rolleston House on the corner of 2 Gloucester Street and Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch, has architectural significance as an example of the English Domestic Revival Style and has historical and social significance as one of the buildings that comprised Canterbury College’s first male hostel.

The block of land between Antigua Street (now Rolleston Avenue), Gloucester Street, Worcester Street and Montreal Street and was granted by the Crown to Church Property Trustees in 1856, and in 1873 Reverend John Raven became the owner of this block. After Raven’s death in 1886 the sections were sold and further divided. In early 1893 the north-west corner sections were purchased by Jessie Helen Bennett, wife of Arthur William Bennett. Designs for their house were prepared by architects Collins and Harman, and the house was built in 1893.

Surrounded by mature trees and a north- and west-fronting timber fence, Rolleston House is a typical late Victorian townhouse, with English Domestic Revival detailing, including half-timbering and overhangs in the gable ends. The fenestration is varied, including bay windows on the ground floor and single and paired sash windows on the first floor. The roof is corrugated steel. When the Bennetts put the house up for sale in September 1916, it was described as containing ‘10 spacious living rooms, also large hall, pantry, store-room, lavatories, cellar, bathroom, wide verandahs facing east, north and west …’.

The Bennetts lived at the corner house for over two decades. In 1914 A W Bennett was appointed Manager of the New Zealand Shipping Company and the following year the Bennetts shifted to Cashmere Hills. It appears that the Bennetts then let out the central city house, and Supreme Court Judge, John Denniston lived there for a year or two. In 1917 the Bennetts sold their ‘splendid two storied residence’ to engineer, Francis Oakley Shacklock. In 1919 Shacklock sold to the university, Canterbury College, where it was House Number 4 as part of a cluster of buildings collectively named Rolleston House and used as a hostel for male students. The Rolleston House hostel, named to honour the former superintendent of Canterbury who encouraged the university’s establishment, was run by a committee of students approved by the College. When the University of Canterbury relocated to a new campus at Ilam in the mid 1970s, Rolleston House was purchased by Christ’s College. It was initially converted into a flat, classrooms and the Clothing Pool and since 1983 this building has served Christ’s College as a day boy house, Rolleston House.