Eliza's Cottage

About

Eliza's Cottage is a historic building in the York area of Western Australia. It is a rare example of a rammed earth structure totally contained within later extensions, representative of the type of dwelling built in the York area, and elsewhere, during the early settlement years. Eliza's Cottage is a simple, Victorian Georgian style building with a central two room "core" constructed from rammed earth, later extensions constructed from soft fired bricks that surround the original two rooms, and more recent extensions at the rear of the building constructed from hard fired bricks.

The exterior of the cottage has been rendered. The single storey structure has a broken pitched, hipped roof covered with corrugated galvanised iron. Three simple brick chimney stacks protrude through the roof on the northern side of the cottage.

The widespread use of rammed earth as a construction method during the 1830s and 1840s probably places Eliza's Cottage somewhere within this time frame. At this stage however, it is impossible to say who built the cottage or for whom it was built. As it was located on Rivett Henry Bland's land it is possible that the cottage was built by Bland to house labourers...