Eliza's Cottage
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Eliza's Cottage is a historic building in the York area of
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
. It is a rare example of a
rammed earth Rammed earth is a technique for construction, constructing foundations, floors, and walls using compacted natural raw materials such as soil, earth, chalk, Lime (material), lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently ...
structure totally contained within later extensions, representative of the type of dwelling built in the York area, and elsewhere, during the early settlement years. Eliza's Cottage is a simple, Victorian Georgian style building with a central two room "core" constructed from rammed earth, later extensions constructed from soft fired bricks that surround the original two rooms, and more recent extensions at the rear of the building constructed from hard fired bricks. The exterior of the cottage has been rendered. The single storey structure has a broken pitched,
hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...
covered with corrugated galvanised iron. Three simple brick chimney stacks protrude through the roof on the northern side of the cottage. Assessment Documentation The widespread use of rammed earth as a construction method during the 1830s and 1840s probably places Eliza's Cottage somewhere within this time frame. At this stage however, it is impossible to say who built the cottage or for whom it was built. As it was located on Rivett Henry Bland's land it is possible that the cottage was built by Bland to house labourers or possibly an overseer. It is considered that there was definitely a house on the property when Burton purchased it in 1860, as bricks had replaced rammed earth as the preferred material. The cottage was built in several stages. The first stage is represented by two core rooms and is thought to date to the early 1840s. The first alterations probably occurred in the 1870s when the cottage was considerable enlarged. The next known alterations occurred in 1988 when additions were added to the rear. The name of the original owner or occupant is not known, though the land was owned by Bland and it is likely that he lived here at some point. In 1855, the land was sold to
Stephen Stanley Parker Stephen Stanley Parker (1817–1904) was an early settler and pioneer of Western Australia and a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council. Biography Early life Parker was born on 24 May 1817 in Lyminge, Kent. He came to the Swan Ri ...
, who also may have lived here for a while before building Bridge House. Parker sold off a portion of Avon Location t (3 roods) to Henry Burton in 1860. Burton had arrived in Western Australia on 1 June 1850 aboard ''
Scindian ''Scindian'' is widely considered the first convict ship to transport convicts to Western Australia. She was launched in 1844 and sank in 1880. Career ''Scindian'' was constructed at Sunderland, England, in 1844 and named after the Indian Scindi ...
''. He was an enrolled pensioner guard and was listed as a labourer living in York in the 1859 census. Burton sold the cottage to Harden York, a
victualler A victualler (pronounced /ˈvɪt(ə)lə/) is traditionally a person who supplies food, beverages and other provisions for the crew of a vessel at sea. There are a number of other more particular uses of the term, such as: * The official supplier ...
at York, in March 1870 for the sum of £35. York soon moved on to
Beverley Beverley is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is located north-west of Hull city centre. At the 2021 census the built-up area of the town had a population of 30,930, and the smaller civil parish had ...
, where he set himself up as a shopkeeper, and he sold the cottage in 1874 to Thomas Tomkinson, a carpenter in York, for £40. Tomkinson was born in 1830 and had arrived in Western Australia . He married three times and was widowed twice. At the time of his purchase of Eliza's Cottage he had five children. Tomkinson had owned the cottage for nine years when he sold it in 1883 to George Bird of Albany. He obtained a price of £120.DOLA Memorial Book IX, No. 342 dated 18/10/1883. The considerable increase in the resale value of the property suggests that major improvements had been made to the building by Tomkinson prior to the sale. Tomkinson may possibly have made the additions himself, as by 1883 he was described as a builder. Bird sold the property in 1886 to Richard Chipper, a publican at York. It is highly likely that both Bird and Chipper had purchased with a view to its investment value, rather than to occupy it themselves. Chipper died in 1888 and the property spent a while in limbo while his
trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, refers to anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the ...
s ordered his estate.DOLA Memorial Book XIV, No. 29 dated 2/12/1901. The cottage was sold by George Stirling (operating on behalf of the trustees) for £120 in 1901 to William Cox, a
teamster A teamster in American English is a truck driver; a person who drives teams of draft animals; or a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a labor union. In some places, a teamster was called a carter, the name referring to the ...
living in York. To purchase the cottage, Cox borrowed £50 from Mary Neville. Cox defaulted on his payments and the property passed into the possession of Neville, who sold the cottage in 1920 to Janet Clement. The cottage had several owners following on from Clement and it was in 1988, during the occupancy of Michael and Alice Woods, that additions were made to the rear of the cottage.Plan submitted to Shire of York dated October 1988. Copy placed in HCWA files 1996. Bruce and Kathleen May became the new owners of Eliza's Cottage in June 1991. They named the dwelling Eliza's Cottage.


References

{{reflist Heritage places in York, Western Australia Buildings and structures in York, Western Australia State Register of Heritage Places in the Shire of York