New Zealand Journal of Archaeology Index  >  Vol 28 Jones.

 

NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY ISSN 0110~540X ABSTRACT

 

 

Archaeology of the Katherine Mansfield

Birthplace, Wellington, New Zealand:

“It’s all memories now… .”

 

Kevin L. Jones1

 

ABSTRACT

Katherine Mansfield, the New Zealand author, was born in 1888 in the newly-built

house at 25 Tinakori Road, Wellington, and lived there until the family left in 1893.

Archaeological investigations of the house and its section were carried out in

collaboration with architects before and during the course of restoration of the house

between 1987 and 1998. The section on which the house was built had been deeply

filled before construction, and lenses in this fill produced artefacts that relate to the

domestic utensils of the period. Only the topsoil and gravel or cinders paving have

artefacts which clearly relate to the period when Mansfield lived in the house. The

fill was so poorly consolidated that the WC (water closet, located in a partitioned

space in the lean-to) and sewage system may have failed to function by 1907.

Investigations under the house related principally to the location and orientation of

the coal ranges in the house service areas and the plan details of the 1888 lean-to,

which had been demolished and re-constructed in 1907.

 

Keywords: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, THORNDON, HOUSE MUSEUM,

LATE-VICTORIAN, BEAUCHAMP, KATHERINE MANSFIELD BIRTHPLACE

SOCIETY, NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE.

 

1Department of Conservation, PO Box 10-420, Wellington, New Zealand. Email: kljones@doc.govt.nz

Ó Copyright New Zealand Archaeological Association.

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