Why is this place significant?

Why is this place Category 1 / Category 2?

Early history Wānaka was a hub for Māori travelling through Central Otago and a staging place for journeys to the West Coast. Seasonal migrations for food and mahika kai were a cornerstone of Kāi Tahu culture. The Mata-au/Clutha headwaters and catchment were a focus of such migrations, with access to resources determined by whakapapa. A pre-European settlement was located at the south end of Lake Wānaka, recorded on Taiaroa’s 1879 map as Takekarara, although the exact location is not known. The name Wānaka itself is a South Island variant on ‘wānanga’ which ‘refers to the ancient schools of learning.’ Archibald Chalmers buys the land Archibald Chalmers was a farmer and butcher in the Cardrona/Wānaka area in the 1870s. Chalmers applied for an agricultural lease at Cardrona in January 1875, one that bounded his business partner John Kerin’s. Kerin and Chalmers were also partners in The Resolute Gold Sluicing Company that held a ground sluicing claim east of Boundary Creek, Cardrona. Kerin and Chalmers extended their business to Pembroke on the shores of Lake Wānaka where they established a butchery and slaughteryard. An 1880 survey of the town of Pembroke shows a structure on section 15, the adjoining section to the current property, which is labelled ‘Chalmer’s House’, with Chalmers’ slaughteryard and other buildings nearby. The lack of alignment with the surveyed sections indicates the building was there prior to the survey. A newspaper article from December 1879 noted that Kerin and Chalmers had erected a slaughteryard on Crown land prior to a license being granted. There was a bitter dispute in the local papers about its location being too close to town. Town sections in Pembroke were offered for sale in November 1881 – including sections 1 to 16 Block XXX. Section 16 was ‘burdened’ with a valuation of £60 – indicating a building on site. The title to land on which this cottage sits was issued to ‘Pembroke butcher Archibald Chalmers’ in April 1886. This was a formalisation of his earlier Crown Grant of September 1883. The cottage, then, looks likely to be associated with Chalmers’ occupation and early photographs show the cottage as built in vernacular style of the 1870s-1880s – a single gable cottage with exterior stone chimneys and a lean-to at the rear. The central door was flanked by two-double hung sash windows. In September 1880, Kerin and Chalmers offer for sale their ‘EXTENSIVE BUTCHERING BUSINESS’ including ‘Butchers’ Shop and Residence, Slaughter Yards, & c., all substantially built.’ Chalmers was intending to visit the ‘Old Country’, hence the sale advertisement. The business does not seem to have sold. Kerin and Chalmers dissolved their partnership in June 1881 – Kerin carried on the pair’s pastoral run on Wilkin River, while Chalmers ran the butchery business. Chalmers also ran butchery businesses at Criffel, a small goldmining settlement. Chalmers committed suicide on 8 April 1886 (after a two week drinking binge). The coroner’s verdict was that he died through poisoning ‘by strychnine administered by himself, he being then in a sound state of mind.’ His heavy drinking had led to the local constable obtaining a ‘prohibition order’ against him, with Chalmers threatening to ‘jump into the lake rather than appear before the magistrate.’ As a suicide, Chalmers’ interment took place at 11pm with ‘almost all the men about the place’ attending ‘with lanterns to follow the remains.’ The coroner’s ‘felo de se’ verdict was unusual. An obituary in Lake County Press reported that Chalmers’ was a ‘very old resident’ of the district, resident some 22 years, where he had followed the business of ‘slaughterman and stock dealer.’ On his deathbed he wrote a will leaving his property to his partner John Ironside. His will does not have a schedule of property and provides no information about his estate. Later history and occupants John Ironside carried on the Chalmer’s butchering business. The cottage remained in the Ironside or Matheson (Ironside’s daughter married a Matheson) families until 1946. Pembroke was renamed Wānaka in 1940. Although tourism had begun early (the first hotel opened in 1867), for many years Wānaka was a quiet summer holiday place (except at New Year’s Eve celebrations). The opening of the nearby ski fields in the 1970s made the town into an all-season tourist resort. The population doubled between 1996 and 2006. The influx of people and the associated building boom has changed the town’s landscape, with large residences replacing the early houses and cottages. Chalmers’ Cottage is now surrounded by substantial residences and it may be the only remaining residence of its type in the town that represents the lives of the town’s first European settlers. Over subsequent years the cottage had several owners, with the current owners buying the property in 1994. The current owners removed the tacked-on enclosed veranda on the front elevation, and rebuilt the rear lean-to, returning the cottage to its original form. In 2017, Chalmers’ Cottage remains a holiday house.

Current Description Setting While early photographs show Chalmers’ Cottage in an isolated position on the flats back from the beach of Lake Wānaka, the area is now built up and largely residential. Nearby houses reflect the intensification of development in this area over a long period – with Summerhill stone houses from the 1960s, stone-clad 1980s residences as well as modest weatherboard houses. This area of Wānaka, located close to the modern town centre, but tucked against the hill that rises at the rear of the town, is notable for its mature gardens. Further west, the townscape is newer and less settled in its planting. The cottage is set on a corner section, a drystone wall demarcating the section boundary. A sympathetically designed carport/garage is located on the corner. Plantings screen the cottage from the adjacent modern residence on Warren Street. The Cottage Chalmers’ Cottage is a single storey colonial cottage of a form typical from the 1860s through until the 1880s - symmetrical façade with a central front door flanked by multi-pane double hung sash windows and a lean-to at the rear. Conservation architect Jeremy Salmond describes the typical early cottage as being two small rooms under a gable roof, with a lean-to at the rear. The cottage is clad in weatherboard with a corrugated iron roof. There are two stacked stone chimneys on the south elevation. Much of the cladding is original fabric, as are some of the windows. The interior doors are original. Where window joinery was replaced, it was matched to the original. The interior is made up of the living room and bedroom at the front of the cottage, and the kitchen, a second bedroom, and bathroom to the rear.

Information Sources

Other Information

A fully referenced New Zealand Heritage List report is available on request from Otago/Southland Area Office of Heritage New Zealand. Please note that entry on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rarangi Korero identifies only the heritage values of the property concerned, and should not be construed as advice on the state of the property, or as a comment of its soundness or safety, including in regard to earthquake risk, safety in the event of fire, or insanitary conditions.