Katherine Mansfield House and Garden (formerly known as Katherine Mansfield Birthplace) was the early childhood home of

Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer, essayist and journalist, widely considered one of the most influential and important authors of the modernist movement. Her works are celebra ...

, a prominent New Zealand author. The building, located in Thorndon,

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

, is classified as a "Category I" historic place by

Heritage New Zealand Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) ( mi, Pouhere Taonga) is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocate ...

Construction and layout

The house was built during an economic depression in 1888 for Mansfield's father, Harold Beauchamp, and was most likely built to a builder's plan. The site was leasehold. Conditions of the lease required any house on the site to be placed more than from Tinakori Road and of a value exceeding £400. The freehold belonged to the then new baronet, Sir Charles Clifford. The two-storey house measures wide and long. The ground or lower floor has a drawing room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen, scullery, and lean-to. On the first or upper floor there are four bedrooms and a night nursery. The original wallpaper and the ceramics recovered through archaeological excavations both illustrate Katherine's mother's interest in Europe's aesthetic movement.

History

Mansfield's family moved into the house in 1888. She was born on October 14, a few months after the move. The initial occupants were her parents; her two sisters, Vera and Charlotte; two aunts, Belle and Kitty, from her mother's side; and her grandmother, Mrs Dyer. With a servant also on the premises, the living space was crowded. 11-week-old Gwendoline died of cholera in 1891, one of 104 epidemic deaths that year. The city had many deaths from infectious diseases like typhoid from the mid-1880s because of poor sanitation with sewage collected in open drains to the harbour. The Beauchamp family moved in 1893 to a more spacious house in then-rural

Karori Karori is a suburb located at the western edge of the urban area of Wellington, New Zealand, 4 km from the city centre and is one of New Zealand's most populous suburbs, with a population of in History Origins The name ''Karori'' used ...

, Chesney Wold. Harold wrote that the shift was made "for the benefit not only of the children's health but also my own." They returned to Thorndon in 1898 to 75 Tinakori RoadWellington houses were re-numbered in 1908. 11 Tinakori Road became 25 Tinakori Road and 75 Tinakori Road became 133 Tinakori Road. ''Re-numbering the City'
''The Evening Post'', 24 September 1908, page 8
/ref> opposite the junction with George Street. About 1907, they moved to 47 Fitzherbert Terrace, then moved to The Grange in Wadestown in 1916. Katherine's mother died in the spring of 1918 and her father remarried in January 1920. Mansfield drew on memories of her childhood home in her short stories " Prelude" (and subsequent novel, '' The Aloe''); "A Birthday"; " The Doll's House", and " The Wind Blows". Mansfield described the house as " dark little cubby hole" and " horrid little piggy house".

Other residents

Harold Beauchamp owned the house until 1929. While there were many occupants and families in the house during this period, the most notable was Dr. Frederick Truby King, founder of the Plunket Society. He lived in the house from 1921 to 1924, during which time he was appointed the Director of Child Welfare in the

Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their ow ...

. The house was sold to Edward Pearce, grandson of the leading businessman and briefly Wellington MP of the same name. State Highway 1 passes beneath the back of the house deep in a trench.". . . beyond the yard a deep gully filled with tree ferns . . ." ''The Aloe'' Once detailed planning began in the 1950s, this house and its surroundings, along with much of this select part of Thorndon, suffered "motorway blight". Wellington writer/journalist Pat Lawlor wrote of the apparently run-down state of this house and the condition of Chesney Wold, their Karori house in 1958 (both then divided into flats). The Society bought this house after the death of the 91-year-old resident, Mrs Edward Pearce, in 1985.

Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society

The Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society—founded in 1986 by art historian Oroya Day, Peter Young, and the architect

James Beard James Andrews Beard (May 5, 1903 – January 23, 1985) was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, ...

—purchased the property in 1987. In the late 1980s, the society restored the house to its original condition, undertaking considerable research and relying on Mansfield's own descriptions as well as photographs and "archeological and architectural analyses". The house and its garden are open to the public.

Notes

References

External links

*
Katherine Mansfield House and Garden
entry in the Register of Historic Places on the

website {{Authority control NZHPT Category I listings in the Wellington Region Historic house museums in New Zealand Monuments and memorials in New Zealand Buildings and structures in Wellington City Museums in Wellington City Mansfield, Katherine 1880s architecture in New Zealand Wooden buildings and structures in New Zealand Historic homes in New Zealand