What were cob/daub cottages like?

In researching the early whaling era, I’ve been particularly interested in understanding what a cob or daub cottage actually was. While learning about Ann, Timaru’s first permanent European mother, I’ve often tried to visualise what her home might have looked like in 1857. To help form a clearer picture, I’ve been exploring buildings around the district that date from a similar period. This cottage is a remarkable example. The best place to begin is at the Levels. This was my first visit to the Keane Cottage, and I was genuinely excited to experience it in person and to imagine what life might have been like for Elizabeth Rhodes at that time.

Cob cottages were a practical choice for early settlers. Built from local soil and clay, they relied on the help and shared knowledge of neighbouring settlers, which kept costs low. One of the key benefits of cob is its natural insulation. These homes stayed warm in winter and cool in summer. Cob construction was once widespread in New Zealand. In 1845, more than 40 per cent of buildings in the South Island were made from earth. As other materials became available, cob use declined. Fewer than 200 earth buildings now survive in the South Island, which makes this one a rare example of its type.

Cob or daub cottages in early Timaru were modest, hand-built homes made from natural materials. Cob is a mix of clay, sand, straw and water, shaped into walls without the use of a timber frame. Daub was usually applied to a woven wattle framework and made from similar ingredients, sometimes including animal dung. These techniques were common in parts of colonial New Zealand where timber was hard to source, especially in areas like South Canterbury.

Most of these cottages were small, often with just one or two rooms. They had thick walls for insulation and thatched roofs made from flax, raupō or tussock, although corrugated iron became more common over time. Windows were simple, often just wooden shutters over open spaces. Floors were usually compacted earth or clay. A stone or clay hearth was central to heating and cooking, and furniture was basic, sometimes made from driftwood or packing crates.

Along the Timaru coast, in places like Caroline Bay and Patiti Point, settlers built these types of cottages close to freshwater and near the whaling stations. Driftwood, flax and clay were easy to find. Some settlers may also have reused materials from the whaling trade. Families like Ann and Samuel “Yankee Sam” Williams likely lived in homes like these when they first arrived, possibly adapting them for comfort or to host visitors.

These houses were popular because they were affordable and could be built quickly using what the land offered. They were not intended to last long, and many were replaced once timber and milled materials became more accessible. Few original cob or daub houses remain in Timaru today, though they are recorded in settler journals and archaeological records. Some heritage centres in New Zealand have built reconstructions to show what these early homes looked like.

This is the best description I could find to imagine what the cottage was like:

"The year 1857 was one of considerable progress in Timaru and there was a ready sale for Rhodes Town sections at about £20 for good quarter-acre lots; there was less demand for those in Government Town even at the lower figure of £12. Sam Williams, the old whaler who had advised the Rhodeses to come to South Canterbury, was now established as host in the first accommodation house—the old homestead on the beach. A few years later he became the licensee of the Timaru Hotel, built by Rhodes, and the old beach house was occupied by Captain Scott, Rhodes’s business agent. In 1866 or 1867 it passed into the hands of S. S. Griffin, whose daughter, now Mrs. Hastings Bridge of Christchurch, has written thus to me of her old home, I recall my bedroom on the upper floor and my enjoyment of the wide expanse of ocean stretching away to the dim distance on either side with nothing to block the view. In the front were two windows, two eyes as it were, looking out to sea, like your grandfather in his early days. The life of this old house, the first homestead in South Canterbury, came to a pathetic end in 1872, when it was sold for the sum of £14, and presumably demolished."

A photo os the Old Landing Service Building around 1983. South Canterbury Museum - Catalogue Number2014/008.010

Imagine standing here where Ann and Sam Williams were once raising their young family... this site has seen so many changes over the decades. In 1851, it was a daub cottage, Timaru’s first European dwelling built as a station house on the shore line at the foot of George Street. By 1860 it had become the timber-built Timaru Hotel, the town’s first licensed public house, run by Sam himself. That early wooden settlement was nearly erased by a devastating fire in 1868, which destroyed much of central Timaru. In response, new building regulations required more permanent construction, and local bluestone became the material of choice. By 1870, this place had taken on a new form with the construction of what we now know as the Landing Service Building, originally called McRae’s Stone Store.

Built by Peter McRae, a well-known local contractor, entrepreneur and hotelier, the stone store was designed as a grain depot, set right on the original shoreline of Timaru Harbour. A Timaru District Council Heritage report suggests wagons could back up to the rear and unload directly onto the first floor, while grain could be transferred straight to boats in front, however I have heard others question if this was actually the case. The building’s practical and robust style, known as Industrial Vernacular, reflected the use of local materials and straightforward methods suited to the growing town. In 1875, the property was taken over by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, which added significantly to the structure, turning it into a large warehouse complex shared with Dalgety and Company. Architect Frances J Wilson, who played a major role in reshaping Timaru after the fire, was involved in these expansions. By 1876, a line of rails ran through the centre of the building, connecting it directly with the main line and increasing its commercial reach. The complex remained in use for warehousing until 1984, when it was purchased by the Timaru City Council. Facing the threat of demolition for some years, it was finally saved and restored in the 1990s by the newly formed Timaru Civic Trust, with strong support from the local community. Today, this building thrives today, repurposed for hospitality, retail and tourism. While the George St Cottage built in 1851 is long gone, this blue stone store is all that remains as a link to the town’s changes and resilience.

Example: Building Cottages in Timaru after the Strathallan Landed (1859)

A recorded example of cob or daub cottage construction in early Timaru comes from the arrival of the immigrant ship Strathallan on 14 January 1859. This marked a turning point in the settlement of South Canterbury, as it brought the first large group of planned settlers to the area. Upon disembarkation, the new arrivals found a raw and largely undeveloped landscape, with only a handful of buildings in existence. Among those present to greet them were Captain Henry Cain, Samuel "Yankee Sam" Williams, and Mr. Woollcombe, the Resident Magistrate.

Mr. Woollcombe made a striking impression. He was dressed not in formal attire, but in a blue serge jumper, clay-smeared moleskin trousers tied at the knees, and boots yellowed with dried mud. He and others had been working hard in the days leading up to the ship’s arrival, building rudimentary cottages and lean-tos to house the incoming settlers. The sweat and clay on their clothes told the story of urgent construction using traditional materials—most likely cob or daub, as timber supplies were limited and mill infrastructure was not yet developed.

One of the cottages under construction at the time belonged to Samuel Williams, who was in the process of adding a lean-to intended to serve as the district’s first licensed public house. The few other houses dotted along the shoreline were made with similar haste and materials, reflecting the settlers’ immediate need for shelter in a place with no established township. Most of the Strathallan passengers had to sleep in a large woolshed owned by the Rhodes family until more permanent structures could be built.

This scene—men coated in clay, cottages half-finished, and newcomers bewildered by the makeshift state of the settlement—offers a vivid example of what cob or daub construction looked like in practice. It also highlights the roles played by influential early figures such as Woollcombe and Williams in laying the foundations, both literal and social, of the new community at Timaru.

This 1853 sketch by 'W.D.' looking north across the Timaru foreshore. It shows George Rhodes' cottage, now the site of the Landing Services building. The short inscription on the drawing reads; Major Rhodes' Home Station on the beach at Timaru, with a view of the country in the north, including the Arowenua [sic] bush on the plain and Talbot forest on the longer declivities of the back ranges. On a clear day part of the Snowy Range bounding the Canterbury Block on the west is visible, more especially Mts Hutt, Talbot, Torlesse and Grey. 13 April, 1853. The first sheep were brought to New Zealand in 1773. In 2018, there were 5.6 sheep for every person in Aotearoa New Zealand, a drop from the woolly peak of 22 sheep per person in 1982. Since their introduction in 1773, sheep have become an integral part of our lifestyles, landscapes, and our national identity.

George Rhodes drove his first flock to Timaru in 1851 for the for the Levels Station. George built a house on the shore at the foot of George Street, Timaru, and then moved to the Rhodes Cottage near Pleasant Point. They lived in this cottage while they built their home.

Elizabeth Wood married George Rhodes on the 31 May 1854 at Lyttelton. A few weeks after their wedding the couple headed south, enduring many hardships as they crossed the plains to George's station 'The Levels'. George died in 1864 and in 1867 the widowed Elizabeth remarried local lawyer Arthur Perry. Elizabeth passed away in 1890.

"William Barnard Rhodes, the eldest of these brothers, had come down to Port Cooper (Lyttelton) from Sydney in charge of a whaling ship in 1834, when his shrewd sense made him realise the possibilities of Canterbury. In 1839 he brought cattle down which he turned out at Akaroa. He bought whaling rights on Banks Peninsula, and took up several runs there. Before the arrival of the First Four Ships, W. B. Rhodes had been joined by his two brothers, George and Robert Heaton. There had been a whaling station at Timaru during the 'thirties, and it was from whalinghands who had been employed there that Rhodes had heard of the beautiful open plains in those parts. Owing apparently to confusion as to the localities of the runs in South Canterbury, further application had page 173to be made for the same country on 30th June, 1851. In a letter of 4th June, 1851, John Robert Godley says that Rhodes Brothers had lately taken a mob of sheep to the country south of the Canterbury Block, and in January, 1852, a mob of 7000 sheep from Purau, Ahuriri and Kaituna (the Rhodes's Peninsula stations), was started for their new runs at Timaru.

The Rhodes Brothers named the station after the place near Doncaster, where their father lived, but in the earliest days they seem to have called their four Timaru runs by separate names, Mt. Elwyn (which afterwards became the Otipua station), Three Brothers, Tenawai, and Timaru. The Levels was originally supposed to cover all the country from the Opihi to the Pareora River, and to run back from the sea to the Mackenzie Pass, but a preliminary survey showed that the Rhodes brothers had far more country than they should, so they made over a run of twenty-two thousand five hundred acres to J. King, a relation by marriage of W. B. Rhodes. This became the Otipua Station. The new southern boundary of the Levels ran from the sea at Saltwater Creek in a straight line to the back of Mt. Horrible at Claremont. A subsequent survey further reduced the area of the Levels—the Albury and the Opawa Runs being cut off it. The Rhodes brothers had 30,000 sheep there as early as 1858. They finally worked the flock up to over 100,000. George Rhodes looked after the station for himself and his brothers, until his death in 1864." -  The Early Canterbury Runs: Containing the First, Second and Third (new) Series. The Levels — (Runs 1, 2, and S N.Z.B.; afterwards re-numbered 519, 520, 521, 522 under the Canterbury Regulations).  https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/webarchive/20210104000423/

Timaru’s port story began in 1851 when the headland was used by George Rhodes to land stores and materials for his house and sheep station. Soon he was landing goods for others and in 1857 sold the business to H.J. Le Cren and Captain Henry Cain. The first wharf was opened in 1881 and signaled the end of the landing service, and the construction of Timaru's artificial port secured the town's economic future. Can you find? The plaque where George Rhodes and his wife Elizabeth lived? Fun fact, Taiko is named after a Māori Sheppard who worked for George Rhodes.

We visited Levels Cottage with our family and Civic Trust friends. It’s such a small, simple house, built in 1854 by George Rhodes (1816–1864) for his new bride Elizabeth Rhodes (1835–1890) when she moved to South Canterbury. Before they lived here, George’s first house in Timaru was a small cottage on the beach, next to where the Timaru Landing Services Building now stands. They moved to the Levels, a sheep station, And lived in this little slab cottage on "The Levels" station for a couple of years while they built their larger home to be closer to the heart of the sheep run that George managed with his brothers.

The Rhodes family were some of the first European settlers in this area. George and his brothers, Robert and William, set up "The Levels" sheep station. The station even holds a bit of legend—James Mackenzie famously stole a flock of sheep from the Rhodes family, driving them into the Mackenzie Basin, which was named after him.

I kept thinking about what life must have been like for Elizabeth back then. She traveled for days across rivers and plains from Christchurch to join George. When she arrived, this tiny two-room house, with wooden slab walls and a thatched grass roof, became her first real home in Timaru.

The Levels homestead during the late 1850s. South Canterbury Museum, 2015/154.074. 

Have you been to Patersons Cottage? The land was owned 1872-1883 by Henry Le Cren (built the Beverley Estate and lived at Craighead house before it was a school). Then James Patterson and his wife, three boys, daughter and step son lived here. There's some debate about who built the house but it could be as old as 140! (Built 1880s). You'll find this on the Strawberry Heritage Trail between Waimate and Kurow. "It is a classification 1 by Heritage NZ, it is historically significant nationally and worthy of preservation"

20 Avenue Rd

Imagine who lived in one of Timaru's early cob cottages and who helped build it? Made of clay and tussock and built for the young wife of an early settler, this one is amazingly still standing on Avenue Rd – though it has seen some changes. As Timaru evolved, so too did this cottage with the building clad in weather board over the cob and a kitchen added at the back. It is thought to have been built around 1860’s by Samuel Barkley, who is thought to have had the help of the Deal Boatmen: skilled boat handlers and the first the be burried at Timaru’s Kensington cemetery.

The Early Timaru borough only went as far west as Grey Road. It wasn't until 1898 that "the outskirts" including Avenue Road were incorporated into the borough. Cob cottages were a popular form of accommodation in Timaru's early days, because they were easily and quickly constructed at a time when the owner did practically all the work himself. In The South Canterbury History, Record of Settlement, OA Gillespie says: Little timber was required for cob, only sufficient to hold the puddled clay in place until it dried, and for door posts, window frames and rafters. The cob itself was a mixture of clay and chopped-up tussock, to which water was added until it attained the consistency of thick porridge.

We think Barkley was helped by at least one of the Deal boatmen, a group of six experienced boat handlers who had emigrated from England to Lyttelton, and were engaged in 1859 for work on Le Cren and Cain's landing service. The men engaged were John Wilds, Morris Corey, Robert Boubius, Henry Clayson, William John Roberts and John J. Bowles. However being a boatman was a dangerous profession, and Morris and Robert were the first to be buried in Timaru cemetery after drowning off Timaru in 1860. Clayson drowned soon after his arrival and was replaced by Phillip Foster, also from Deal.

Bugler John Wilds is seen in the photo in the slideshow as a child holding the hand of his grandfather John Wilds, one of the Deal boatmen who came to Timaru in 1859, at the Wilds' home in North Street on the site of the present Timaru Boys' High School, circa 1899. 

How you can join the history hunt...

If you are looking to learn about the Deal Boat Men, check out this website that what we used: sites.rootsweb.com/cob

The information about John Wildes is from here: www.genealogy.org.nz/2016-10-SthCanterbury.pdf and timdc.pastperfectonline.com/CDD5274A-6CDF-4177-B184-472136443765

See the photo of John Wilds and his family outside their home on North Street 1896: https://timdc.pastperfectonline.com/photo/CDD5274A-6CDF-4177-B184-472136443765

16 March 2020

Just to change the subject from worrying viruses... Who knows who lived here on Keane Road, Pleasant Point? I would love to find the home of George and Elizabeth Rhodes at The Levels, but Im not sure if this is it? Cob buildings were once a significant part of New Zealand's early history and census figures from 1845 recorded more than 40 per cent of building stock in the South Island was of earth construction. As times progressed and more building materials became available this percentage declined to the point where there are fewer than 200 earth dwellings in the South Island today.

The Keane Cottage, located on Keane Road in Levels Valley near Pleasant Point, is a well-preserved example of early cob construction in South Canterbury. Cob buildings were once a significant part of New Zealand’s early built environment. In 1845, census figures recorded that over 40 per cent of the South Island’s building stock was made from earth. As imported building materials became more widely available, this number declined. Today, fewer than 200 earth dwellings survive in the South Island.

James and Ellen Keane were immigrants from County Kerry, Ireland. They arrived in Canterbury on 1 July 1861 aboard the Chrysolite, which had departed Gravesend, London, earlier that April. After landing at Lyttelton, the Keanes spent approximately ten years living in Christchurch before moving south to settle in South Canterbury with their five children. They purchased farmland in the Levels Valley and constructed a cob house on the property that still stands on its original site.

The cottage they built is a substantial two-storeyed structure with a large ground-floor living room and an upper loft where the family slept. The covered wagon they used to travel south remained on the property near the cottage well into the 1940s. The main elevation of the cottage faces north-east, with small four-pane casement windows flanking an offset entrance. The north-west gable end features a loft door with a cathead hoist above it. A brick chimney is located on the gable ridge. A nearby outbuilding of similar cob and timber construction survives alongside the cottage.

Cob was a popular choice for early settlers due to the availability of local clay and soil, and the communal labour required to construct it. These structures provided effective thermal insulation, making them suitable for Canterbury’s climatic extremes. When well maintained, cob buildings can remain functional for centuries. The Keane Cottage has been kept in good condition through regular upkeep by past and present landowners. It is fenced off from the surrounding farmland to protect it from stock and has been fitted with a corrugated iron roof, spouting, and other protective features. Restoration work was carried out in the late 1980s by the South Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.

The Keanes initially held their property (RS 13743) as leasehold, and James Keane was listed as a farm labourer by the time he secured freehold title by 1896. The land remained in local ownership into the twentieth century and was later subdivided in 1970. The road that runs past the property was already known as Keane’s Road by 1900. The setting includes a partially fenced garden in the south-west corner of a paddock near the intersection of Keane Road and Pleasant Point Highway. Remnant cob structures also survive on the opposite side of the road.

The Keane Cottage and outbuilding are listed as a Category B heritage item by Timaru District Council. They hold historical and cultural significance for their association with Irish immigrant settlement, particularly by those from County Kerry who worked on the South Canterbury railway. The buildings have architectural value as examples of colonial vernacular design and demonstrate early settler building techniques. Their survival contributes to the understanding of local rural history and the practical use of cob as a building material in the 19th century.

Mrs E.M. Studholme and her family outside ‘The Cuddy’, Te Waimate, c.1890.
Pictured in front of her first home in the district, this thatched-roof cottage—known as The Cuddy—was built in 1854 and is believed to be the earliest European house in Waimate.
Courtesy of South Canterbury Museum, 2974.

At first glance, The Cuddy is simply a hut. A modest, two-roomed cottage built in 1854 from a single totara tree. But this small structure, still standing at Te Waimate Station, is one of New Zealand’s oldest surviving settler dwellings. It holds within its walls the story of colonial beginnings, domestic resilience, and the shaping of early South Canterbury.

The Cuddy was built by Michael Studholme and George Brayshaw, part of a wave of young English settlers forging lives on the pastoral frontier. Its construction was simple but clever—vertical totara slabs with cob-filled walls, a clay floor, and snowgrass thatch laid by Saul Shrives. Later thatch layers and careful repairs have helped it survive, almost unchanged, for over 170 years.

Originally housing station workers and Michael himself, The Cuddy was a man’s dwelling. When Michael married Effie Channon in 1860, they chose a new, larger home nearby. But women shaped its story too. Effie brought a cutting of a pearl pink rose on horseback from Christchurch. After the grand homestead burned down in 1928, Mrs E. C. Studholme and her family moved into The Cuddy, turning it into a family home once again.

The Cuddy stands on its original site at 27 State Highway 82, near Waimate. Surrounded by trees planted by the Studholme family, it sits within a property still farmed by their descendants. Unlike many early huts which have disappeared, The Cuddy was declared a private historic reserve in 1960 and is now cared for by Heritage New Zealand.

Built in 1854, The Cuddy predates the town of Waimate itself. It came before the arrival of the Strathallan immigrants in Timaru, before flour mills, railway lines and formal townships. It was constructed in a landscape still largely forested, following a peaceful agreement between Michael Studholme and local Māori chief Te Huruhuru.

The Cuddy represents more than survival. It shows how early settlers adapted to local materials and conditions. It reminds us of the role women played in preserving heritage that was never built in their name. And it offers a rare glimpse into the everyday architecture of the 1850s—a time when most homes were built with whatever was at hand, and few have lasted.