Kemp House, New Zealand's oldest building, is celebrating its 200th birthday. Photo / Grant Sheehan
Kemp House, New Zealand's oldest building, is celebrating its 200th birthday. Photo / Grant Sheehan
Kerikeri's Kemp House — the oldest surviving building in New Zealand — is celebrating its 200th birthday on Friday.
On March 25, 1822, missionary Reverend John Butler, his wife Hannah, their teenage son Samuel and daughter, also named Hannah, started moving their belongings into their new home.
Writing in his journal that day, Butler recorded simply, ''Moving things into the new house''.
The "new house" he referred to still stands on its original spot at Kerikeri Basin under the shadow of Kororipo, the pā of Ngāpuhi rangatira and mission protector, Hongi Hika.
The adjacent Stone Store was not built until 14 years later.
To mark the milestone anniversary Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, which looks after the building, is offering free admission to Kemp House on Friday.
The simple wooden building has survived the Musket Wars, the dregs of British soldiery being billeted on site, the threat of fire and several major floods during the past 200 years.
Kerikeri Mission Station property lead Liz Bigwood said the house had largely been completed when the family moved in, though a meal had already been enjoyed there and fellow missionary William Fairburn had put up some shelves a week earlier — one of New Zealand's earliest attempts at DIY, the results of which are still visible today.
''The key anniversary for us, though, is when the Butlers moved in, signalling the beginning of a very long history as a family home."
Kemp House was not inhabited by the Butlers for long, however. After a falling out between John Butler and mission kingpin Rev Samuel Marsden, the Butlers — with the exception of son Samuel — left New Zealand in 1823.
In later years, missionaries James Kemp and his wife Charlotte moved in, and the house remained in the Kemp family until the mid-1970s.
"Kemp House is an important remnant of early contact between Māori and Pākehā and was built by missionary carpenters and Māori sawyers," Bigwood said.
All the key people involved in building the house were called William, which must have made for interesting communication issues on the construction site.
Kemp House, New Zealand's oldest building, is celebrating its 200th birthday. Photo / Grant Sheehan
"The house was built from locally milled native timbers and incorporated roof shingles from Australia. Originally it was only one room deep, though it was later extended to include a number of lean-tos."
Those add-ons included a schoolroom where Martha Clarke and later Charlotte Kemp provided domestic training and other tuition for Māori children, including the daughters of chiefs Hongi, Rewa and Wharerahi.
Two writing slates uncovered under the Kemp House floorboards in 2000 have words in te reo etched into them.
"The first slate found is signed 'Nā Rongo Hongi aged 16'. Rongo Hongi was the daughter of Ngāpuhi chief Hongi Hika. Rongo lived with the Kemp family, leaving only to be with her father and mother during important occasions and to tend to her father after he had been injured in battle," Bigwood said.
Rongo, who took the name Hariata after she was baptised, only moved out of the house when she married Hone Heke.
The second slate had an early waiata whakautu - a song in reply - etched on it. In 2018 both slates were added to the Unesco Memory of the World documentary heritage register.
After the mission folded in 1848, the Kemps continued to live in the house, operating a kauri gum business from the neighbouring Stone Store.
The house and gardens were passed down through the family until Ernest Kemp — great-grandson of James and Charlotte — gifted the house to the nation in 1974 through the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, now Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
