The Elms

One of the last and finest Colonial Georgian houses in New Zealand,The Elms was built as a mission house in 1847. The Te Papa mission had been founded in the 1830s and the nearby tiny mission library, built in 1839, is older than the house. In 1873 the house became the private home of the family of the missionary Alfred Brown. A local trust now cares for the building. On 28 April 1864 nine British officers from the 43rd Regiment and the Royal Navy dined here on the eve of the Battle of Gate Pa. Only one survived.