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Overview
This model is a representation of the Randell family cottage as it might have looked in 1871, the year Helen (Nell) Randell, ninth child of William and Sarah Randell, was born. It captures a moment in time, which is a tradition of American dollhouse making.
Penelope Bent, a law lecturer at Victoria University, constructed and furnished the house while she was in residence at Randell Cottage. Penny and her husband Dale lived in the cottage for a year before returning to Canada at the end of 2001. Penny sold the model to Susan Price, Sarah and William Randell’s great, great granddaughter, at the end of her stay.
The Randell family occupied their small cottage at 8 (later 14) St Mary Street in Thorndon from 1867 to 1912. In 1994 William and Sarah Randell’s great-granddaughter Beverley Randell and her husband Hugh Price purchased the cottage, and with daughter Susan Price set about restoring it. In 2001 Hugh, Beverley and Susan gifted the cottage to Randell Cottage Writers Trust so that it could be used as a writer’s residency.
During the restoration of the cottage a number of everyday objects were discovered hidden in the walls, under the floorboards and in the attic. Beverley donated these items to Te Papa in 2008.