Arnold Cottage

A place in the landscape where sweet peas grew and children played – but no longer. I wish I could have talked with John Arnold. I wanted to know what it was like to raise 6 children in this home.

Courtesy of the Cambridge Museum:
Just out of the borough on Hamilton Road, this cottage is on its original fifty acre Military Grant given to John Arnold in 1866 at the end of his three year military service. The cottage is the last in the line of a progression from tent to raupo whare to cottage - increased throughout the Arnold family's lifetime as more children were born.

Maria Arnold, John's wife, grew sweet peas around the cottage from seeds she had brought from Australia in 1864. She also helped to run the Butchery on the Triangle Corner in Cambridge while John fattened cattle and grew oats. They raised six children and St Andrews Church bears a stained glass window to the memory of John and Maria Arnold.