Ewelme Cottage, Parnell

Ewelme Cottage was built for the Rev. Vicesimus Lush and his wife Blanche Hawkins. Vicesimus died in Parnell in 1882. After his death Blanche had the cottage enlarged, living there until she died in 1912. The house was inhabited by their descendants until 1967 when it was bought by the Auckland City Council and leased to Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

Ewelme, which has remained virtually unaltered since the 1880s, is filled with family furniture and possessions, including a fine collection of 2,000 books, hundreds of pages of sheet music, original artworks and a vast array of everyday domestic objects familiar to a colonial middle-class family. Ewelme is surrounded by a delightful well-preserved 19th century cottage garden.