This central Auckland cottage tells a remarkable tale of the city’s bicultural history

This story begins with a 160-year-old cottage, sited in a vortex of overlapping histories, and becomes the tale of a city itself.

The green and cream weatherboard house at 18 Wynyard Street is a rare survivor of the old dwellings that once lined this central Auckland lane.

These days it houses the University of Auckland’s James Henare Research Centre, dedicated to empowering Maori in the Te Tai Tokerau region.

But the cottage was originally built in the 1860s to provide housing for married British army officers during the land wars raging at that time.

The street was named after Colonel Robert Henry Wynyard, the commanding officer of British armed forces in the 1850s and acting Governor of New Zealand for a year.

Wynyard lived among other colonial officers in Officials Bay, which was visible from Wynyard Street back then. The Maori name for the bay is Te Hororoa, the “slipping away”.

It was a short stroll from Wynyard Street to Te Hororoa before extensive land reclamation between the 1870s and 1920s. Now, the shoreline is covered in asphalt and named Beach Road.

Despite the massive changes in the area over the past 160 years, stories have surfaced from the earth beside the cottage on Wynyard Street.

Lost history and reclaimed land

Around 2007, when buildings to the south of the cottage were demolished to make way for the university’s business school, an archaeological team found a midden containing traces of earlier Maori life: obsidian flakes, chert and greywacke tools, and a bird-bone awl that may have been used to make dog-skin cloaks.

The archaeologists noted that Te Reuroa pa once stood at the top of Constitution Hill, near where the Auckland High Court now stands.

In nearby Albert Park, there was also a significant settlement, the Ngati Whatua kainga (village) of Rangipuke, and a fortified pa called Te Horotiu.

Maori are believed to have valued the hilltop because the elevated site was good for growing crops and easy to defend, while two freshwater streams ran into the bays below.

In the 1840s, British military barracks were built at what became Albert Park. Albert Barracks grew to a nine-hectare military compound, which the early British used to secure their position against Maori.

Part of the basalt wall that once circled Albert Barracks still snakes through the university grounds.

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Before European histories begin, the whenua (land) beside the cottage might have been used by Maori for preparing flax and food, and making garments.

The earth under our feet is full of fragments. But it’s difficult to reclaim the past in this part of Auckland because reclaiming land for a new shoreline involved digging up hills where Maori once lived and worked.

Parts of Tamaki Makaurau were flattened beyond recognition, then concreted over in the process of becoming Auckland city.

The Wynyard Street cottage has also changed over the years. It was restructured in the 1920s by Malcolm Draffin, one of the architects of the Auckland War Memorial Museum in the nearby Domain.

The house later glimpsed the limelight during a brief season when it became a theatre. British movie star Vivien Leigh (who played Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind) visited in 1962 and the venue was named in her honour.

But the owner and manager of the Vivien Leigh Theatre was jailed for his homosexuality and the theatre doors slammed shut before a single show was staged.

Later in the 1960s, the university bought the building. Education and anthropology departments took over the space until it became a Maori research centre in 1993.

A door to the past and future

By a curious coincidence, the James Henare Research Centre is named after Sir James Henare, the great-grandson of Colonel Robert Henry Wynyard.

But hold on for a plot twist.

Sir James was the son of Taurekareka Henare, whose father Henare Wynyard was the son Robert Wynyard had fathered out of wedlock with a Maori woman.

Taurekareka changed the family name from Wynyard to his father’s Christian name, Henare, as a means of aligning with his whakapapa (genealogy), which led back to the great warriors Kawiti and Hone Heke.

In 1845, Taurekareka’s grandfather Robert Wynyard had fought in the British army that attacked Ruapekapeka pa in Northland. The Maori defending the pa included Kawiti and Hone Heke.

That left Taurekareka looking back at a history in which his ancestors did battle. He chose the Maori side when he dropped the surname Wynyard and became a Henare.

Taurekareka’s son James (later Sir James) was a Ngati Hine rangatira (chief) born in the Bay of Islands. He served as commanding officer in the Maori Battalion in World War II and later became a champion of Maori education and the kohanga reo movement.

A man of great mana, he helped Ngati Whatua Orakei during their Waitangi Tribunal claim in the 1980s. After he died in 1989, Ngati Whatua leaders asked if his name might be given to the new centre.

Thus the name Henare returned to claim ground on Wynyard Street. Sir James’ son, Bernard Henare, is now chair of the centre.

In the 1990s, Ngati Porou master carver Pakaariki Harrison created two pou and a lintel for the entrance to the centre.

The whakairo (carving) physically and symbolically transformed the house into a whare for its official opening in 1994. Several years ago, the pou were removed for restoration by Pakaariki’s son, Fred Harrison. The carvings will be returned to cloak the whare early in 2026.

Number 18 Wynyard Street is shrouded in layers of the past that build to the future. Maybe one day its doors will open onto Henare Street instead.

Ahmed Uzair Aziz has worked as a researcher and administrator at the James Henare Research Centre. He is a recipient of the University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship.