Room 3’s

visit to

Broadgreen House

Broadgreen House

Broadgreen House was built in 1855 for Mr and Mrs Buxton and their six daughters. They were English and came for a better life in New Zealand. The Buxton’s were very wealthy.

They built their home on a 100 acre property. Mr Buxton like to breed pigs and he named one after his daughter Alice. Mr Buxton planted a lot of the trees, but the rose garden was planted by later owners.

The house is made out of mud mixed with straw and horse hair. The walls are about 50 – 60cm thick which was designed to keep in the heat during winter and keep the house cool during summer. Some parts of the house were very cold though. The roof is made out of tiles from Wales. They bought these with them on the boat over from England.

The Scullery

This is the Scullery. It was very cold in here. It had thick walls and had a marble bench which was very cold. The reason this room was so cold was because they stored meat, cheese, butter, eggs, milk and things in here. They didn’t have fridges so needed a really cold room. They also used a cupboard that had a mesh door to keep out flies and mice and also let air flow through. They used this like a fridge.

The Scullery

They use to have to make their own butter. Graham is showing a butter churner. They put cream in the jar and if you turn the handle a lot, the cream eventually turns into butter. Next to that are some old fashioned scales. You would put something in the large pan, then use weights to find out how much it weighs.

Tyla is holding some wooden butter paddles. You put a some butter between the paddles and rub them together to form the butter into a curl. They liked to have their butter served in nice shapes.

By Ella, Brodie, Edward Lane, Tyla and Graham

The KitchenThis is the kitchen. They didn’t use to have electricity, so they had to do everything by hand and with fires.

The servants had to sleep up stairs because they needed to make sure the fire didn’t go out at night. If the fire went out, it was like us losing electricity. Also the maids and servants had to start at about 6.00 in the morning and wouldn’t finish until about 8.00 at night.

They had 3 ovens – one for heating water, one for doing the main cooking and one for baking bread.

They used cast iron pots and pans because they didn’t use to have aluminium. These were really heavy.

You can see some of the old utensils that they used to use, like hand-beaters and old whisks.

The KitchenYou can see in the photo the old ‘Mangler’ or ‘Ringer’. It would take a maid an entire day to do the washing. The water would be heated in the ‘copper’ and one piece of clothing would be washed on a wooden scrubbing board at a time. Then they would feed the clothes into the ringer, turn the handle and all of the water would be squeezed out. They would then hang the clothes up to dry. Sometimes they hung up small things on the clothes line in the kitchen.

You can also see a ceramic bowl and a wooden egg stand.

All of the food for the household – Mr and Mrs Buxton and their 6 daughters as well as for the servants, would be made in here and in the scullery.

By Zac and Amanda

The Servant’s Dining Room

This is the servant’s dining room. This room is next to the kitchen. When they had free time, they were allowed to sit in here. They would read, talk or write letters to their families and friends. They would also knit, sew or mend clothes.

The slate floor tiles were bought by boat from England. When the Buxton’s came to New Zealand from England, they had to bring everything over with them. The tiles were used as ‘ballast’ and kept in the hold of the ship to help keep it stable in the water.

By Laurens

The Servant’s Coal RangeThis is the servant’s coal range. They had to wake up very early

to light the fire inside this. The servants would put big kettles of water on top of this to heat. It would also keep the kitchen and servant’s lounge warm.

If they had to iron clothes, they would put the irons on this to heat up. They would keep doing this because the irons would cool down as they ironed.

When the servants had free time, they would sit beside this, drink tea and keep warm.

This was quite a modern coal range because it had a small area where the servants could pour in cold water and the fire would heat it. Then they could turn a tap and the hot water would come out. This was great because they didn’t have hot running water.

At the side of the photo, you can see big brass bed-warmers. They would takethe hot coals out of the coal range and put them inside the bed warmers. They would run the bed warmers over the sheets to get them warm.

By Kate, James and Ella

The Dining Room

This is the Dining Room. Only the family and friends of the family would eat in here. The servants would eat in their dining room.

The table cloth was made of velvet, the wall paper also had a velvet pattern on it and above the table was a huge crystal chandelier.

Next to the Dining Room was another little room that was connected to the kitchen by a ‘dumb waiter’. A ‘dumb waiter’ is a special cupboard that you can slide food through to the next room. The servants in the kitchen would put the food in the dumb waiter and the servants in the dining room would get it out and serve it onto plates or straight onto the dining table.

Here are some china plates and cups and saucers that the Buxton family would have used. The men used special ‘moustache cups’ that were especially designed for men with moustaches.

There is also an old lamp (not an electric one) and an old photo.

The BedroomsThis is one of the bedrooms for the Buxton family. Their mattresses were made out of feathers or other material like horse hair. They were not very comfortable.

They would had jugs and basins in each room so you could wash your face and hands in the morning or after using the ‘Chamber pots’. They didn’t have bathrooms inside or a toilet so they used ‘chamber pots’ that the maids had to empty.

In the master bedroom (Mr and Mrs Buxton’s room) there was a tin bath. Women used to have baths twice and year, and men would only have 1 a year or not at all!

ClothingThis is some of the clothing they liked to wear.

The men wore thick woollen suits and the women wore very long dresses with 2 or 3 petticoats underneath. The dresses were even long in summer because women were not allowed to show their ankles.

Both men and women wore boots.

Women also wore corsets underneath their dresses. These were made with material, wire and whale bone and it made their waists look small. Sometimes women wore a ‘bustle’ which is a wire frame. They tied this around their waists under their dresses to make their bottoms look bigger. This is very different from now!

Boys wore skirts until they were 4 or 5 years old, then they wore trousers or long shorts.