A Record of the Archaeological Discoveries Made at 14 Mary Street Thorndon, Wellington when the Settler's Cottage was Restored

Randell Cottage is one of Wellington's earliest surviving cottages in the colonial Georgian style. These bound documents report the history, property sale and inventories of objects unearthed during the restoration project of the cottage in 1994 - 1995. The documents were compiled by Susan Price, a great-great-grand daughter of William and Sarah Randell who built the cottage at 14 Mary Street, Thorndon, Wellington in 1867. William Randell was a mason/bricklayer from Dorset, and he and his wife Sarah arrived in Wellington, New Zealand in February 1855, on the barque 'Belle Creole' from Melbourne. They had left Plymouth, Devon, in July 1854 on the 'Violet'. On arrival in Wellington they rented in Ghuznee Street, and in 1860 leased a cottage in the Wesleyan Reserve, [now the Wellington Botanic Gardens] in 1865 they bought land in St Mary Street & moved into their new four-roomed cottage in St Mary Street (now numbered 14) in 1867. In 2001 the Price family gifted Randell Cottage to the Randell Cottage Writers Trust, which allows French and New Zealand writers, alternately, to live and work in the cottage.