Old Cottage

Another aspect of the club is this Heritage Cottage that has been completely restored.

A group of enthusiastic members led by our club President,Bernard Mason & Shirley Shefford, have done an amazing job on this project.
An opportunity arose in 2009 for the club to acquire the old cottage from Havelock, Marlborough. Bernard & Shirley went to take a look at an old Dairy with the intention of restoring it but it was past the point of restoration. Instead they were offered this old cottage that was believed to be built in 1882 by the Watson Family. The Beach Family of Douslin Rd, Havelock then donated the cottage to the club so it could be restored. This was to be a huge under taking but Bernard & Shirley were not deterred. They approached the Canterbury Trust & received a $5000.00 Grant. They formed a sub group of the Marlborough Vintage & Farm Machinery Society and with another six club members they started raising money for the Cottage Fund.
They raised another $5000.00 and began making plans to have the old cottage moved to it’s present location at Brayshaw Heritage Park in Blenheim. The cottage consists of a kitchen, sitting room, and two bedrooms and once the cottage was securely fixed to it's new foundation restorations soon began with water proofing the roof & exterior and replacing the back wall where the added-on rooms were removed before the cottage was relocated. Over the next four years the cottage was slowly transformed to it's former glory. When the cottage was first built it had hand sawn Matai shingle tiles as a roof and Matai flooring. All the timber was purchased from Brownlee's timber mill in Havelock at a cost of £26 and an extra £1 was charged for stacking the timber on site.

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