Early Settlement and the Pelorus Connection
English immigrant Charles Turner arrived in New Zealand in 1861, living on Kawau Island where his father worked as a builder on Mansion House.1,2 Under his father's instruction, Charles and his brother Arthur gained extensive timber construction skills.3,4 After meeting seventeen-year-old Matilda McKenzie, twenty-seven-year-old Charles relocated to the Pelorus Valley in 1867 to work as a bushman, with the couple marrying in 1870.5,6
In 1881, Charles purchased Section 74 in the Rai Valley for 151 pounds and 10 shillings.7 Dense rainforest covered the isolated district between Nelson and Marlborough, making the Turners the first European family to settle permanently in the valley.8,9,10 Charles continued working as a bushman in the Pelorus Valley, making a weekly trek while Matilda and the children cleared the land.11,12
Construction of the Tōtara Cottage
Charles and Arthur Turner built the simple gabled cottage in early 1881 using hand-split tōtara slabs and pit-sawn timber framing.13,14,15 The exterior sheathing was sourced from contractor Freeborn Parsons, who spent two years felling tōtara trees for telegraph poles between Havelock and Nelson, providing outer slabs from the logs for the building.16
The original structure featured a shingled tōtara roof alongside a chimney built from river boulders, corrugated iron, and exterior timber framing.17 Over the following decade, the family constructed several additions, including a cookhouse, a bread oven, a dairy, a milking shed, and a dedicated slab room where Charles played his violin.18
Pioneer Life and Hospitality
Despite their isolation, the Turner family established a successful cattle farm and relied on a subsistence lifestyle.19,20,21 They traded dairy products like milk, butter, and cheese with local Māori travelling through Carluke between Tennyson Inlet, Whangarae, and Delaware Bay in exchange for wild pig and fish.22
The cottage became a vital resting point for travellers, surveyors, and ministers navigating the rough tracks.23,24,25 Daughter Jane Turner recorded in her diary that the family hosted over 500 visitors in 1894 alone.26 During candlelit gatherings, Charles played his fiddle while Matilda danced the jig to entertain passing guests.27
Restoration and Modern Conservation
In 1909, son Tim persuaded Charles and Matilda to sell the property to Thomas and Catherine Blanchett.28 Later owners used the dwelling as a shearing shed, playhouse, and fowl house until landowner Woodrow Wilson set the building aside as a historic reserve in 1965.29 The Rai Valley Pioneer Home Committee restored the structure using tōtara slabs from a local barn, reopening it as a museum in 1969.30,31
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga assumed management of the Category 1 Historic Place, maintaining it as the oldest surviving building in the Rai Valley.32,33 In June 2025, heritage specialists conducted subfloor repairs to resolve ground dampness, manually excavating beneath the structure to install treated pine piles and bearers, preserving both the building and its historical collection.34