Chichester Cottage
Hobsonville Point Residents Society was gifted Chichester Cottage by Kainga Ora to use as a community venue. When hiring the venue please treat our 90-year-old cottage with respect and leave it the way you found it.
Chichester Cottage is open to book between 6am – 10pm daily.
The cost to hire the cottage is $30 per hour.
If you are a community service or group, or a not for profit business, please contact us to discuss a concession.
When booking, consider 30 minutes for pack in and pack out times as this should be included within your booking period.
Chichester Cottage
Chichester Cottage stands on the left under the tall trees at the far end of Buckley Avenue. Originally it stood in the grounds of Mill House, the larger building next door, which is now Bear Park childcare centre.
The cottage was built by Doug and Audrey Mill around 1927. After their marriage and a long overseas trip they lived in this little house while they built their big new residence. Later the cottage was used to develop photographs when the Mills developed a pioneering aerial photography business.
Francis Chichester and his de Havilland Gipsy Moth, 1931. Photo credit: PICT-000003. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington
It is named after Francis Chichester, who stayed in it nearly 90 years ago as he prepared for a great adventure. In 1931 he became the first person to fly alone across the Tasman Sea in a Gypsy Moth bi-plane, via Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.
Hobsonville engineering staff helped him get the small aircraft ready, giving it a careful overhaul, installing long-range tanks and attaching floats he found lying around in a hangar. No GPS then! He navigated by the sun after teaching himself to use a sextant.
The Gipsy Moth name was painted on the bow of a yacht in which he sailed the world more than three decades later. He was 65 when he became the first man to singlehandedly circumnavigate the globe, a feat for which he was knighted.
As plans were laid to change Hobsonville Airbase to a residential community, the cottage stood out as a special piece of local history that needed to be preserved. The Hobsonville Land Company, formerly HLC and now Kainga Ora offered to gift it in a restored state to HPRS to be used by the society and as a community facility.
The HPRS committee consulted with its members and accepted ownership of the cottage. The land around it lies on Te Ara Manawa – The Hobsonville/Onekiritea Coastal Walkway and is the responsibility of Auckland Council.
Chichester Cottage is available for hire as a community facility or for private business hire. It can be used for small group meetings, family gatherings or dinners, classes, performances, workshops, therapy rooms or shared workspace. There’s a petanque court out front, too.