This cottage has an unusual history. In 1893 the section on which it stands was bought from William Watkins by Bonnette Walker, the wife of J.J. Walker, a builder. The Walkers were already living next door to the section (see 114 Rue Jolie).
Walker erected a shed on the land owned by his wife from which he ran his undertaking business. He used the shed for making coffins and storing his horse-drawn hearse. (Builders commonly, in this period, also worked as undertakers.) After World War II, parts of the old shed were dragged forward on the property and converted into a dwelling.
The fact that it is a converted shed explains why the cottage cannot be fitted, by its style, into the story of the development of Akaroa’s domestic architecture.
