Coton's Cottage

In 1864 Bentley Coton and his wife bought 50 acres of land at Hororata on the Canterbury Plains. Coton built a small cob cottage that originally consisted of five rooms including an attic bedroom. Construction was a cob mixture of local clay and tussock. The clay was extracted from the land at the rear of the building and tussock cut from the surrounding farmland. The roof was thatched wheat straw which was replaced with shingles and finally with corrugated iron.

In 1974, the cottage and surrounding land were gifted to the Crown for an historic reserve and the day to day management of the reserve was transferred to the Hororata Historical Society. The Society largely rebuilt the cottage in 1977, re-using many of the original materials. Subsequently, the Society moved a second building onto the property as the local museum.

The Cottage, furnished from the Hororata Historical Society's collection, is an example of a typical 19th century dwelling on a small Canterbury holding.