Trust to raise funds to preserve historical properties
A charitable trust is being set up in Taranaki to raise funds and help preserve the region’s valuable building heritage which is disappearing due to neglect, or development.
The non-profit Taranaki Heritage Preservation Trust’s first target will be to buy the
164-year-old Fishleigh Cottage in New Plymouth, believed to be the oldest building still intact on its original site in the city.
Trust chairman and Heritage Taranaki researcher Hamish Crimp said it hoped to raise $200,000 plus to buy the property.
Much of the funding would come from private benefactors, community trusts and lottery grants, he said.
The trust, comprised Crimp, archaeologist Ivan Bruce, New Plymouth district councillor Colin Johnston and heritage advocate Sarah Buist, want to raise the profile of built heritage in Taranaki.
Efforts by the group to become a charitable trust, under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957, have been hampered by the Covid-19 alert level lock down.
‘‘Fishleigh Cottage on Aubrey St has been in the forefront of group members’ minds for some time,’’ Crimp said.
‘‘The original portion was constructed in
1856-57, and the cottage in its present form was largely complete by the late 1890s.
‘‘It is a significant building for the region being one of New Plymouth’s oldest surviving buildings, and a rare survivor of the Taranaki Wars in the 1860s.’’
The vertical board and batten style construction, and large andesite stone chimney and river stone piles, was regionally significant, Crimp said.
Fishleigh Cottage is protected as a listed heritage building in the proposed New Plymouth District Plan, and as an archaeological site under Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014 preventing demolition, removal, or alteration.
The protective orders also complicate any works intended on the cottage, or property, he said. ‘‘It is in a poor state of repair and if work is not undertaken soon, the cottage may be lost to demolition by neglect.’’
The trust is interested to hear from anyone keen to donate to help the purchase, he said.