Historic Mitchells Cottage
Location
The Fruitlands district is located on SH 8, 27 kilometres north of Roxburgh and 13 kilometres south of Alexandra. Turn off the highway onto Symes Road and travel a kilometre to the Mitchells Cottage Historic Reserve carpark on the right.
Mitchells Cottage
A tangible link with goldmining
Mitchells Cottage is an exceptional example of craftsmanship and is is listed as a Category 1 Historic place. As such, it is one of the best surviving examples of the stonemason's craft.
It was built by gold miner, Andrew Mitchell, for his brother John and sister-in-law Jessie. Andrew began the project in 1880 and used local stone, using the stone masonary techniques that he had learned from his father at home in the Shetland Islands. Andrew also built several other buildings in the Fruitlands district, known then as Bald Hill Flat and prior to that as Speargrass Flat.
Building the cottage became a long-term project; it wasn't completed until 1904. in the meantime John and Jessie Mitchell's lived in a corrugated iron cottage, where they began what was to become a family of 10 children.
The cottage and ancillary buildings
overlooking the Fruitlands district
Mitchells today
The cottage still stands, with a row of sturdy buildings behind it, including a henhouse and sheepfolds that have been built into, large schist tors. Practically no mortar was used in the house's construction. It has two large rooms and three smaller ones, including the kitchen.
Andrew Mitchell, when he was not living beside his mine on the Old Man Range, resided in a neat iron cottage, just below the present Mitchells cottage. Between the two houses he planted holly, spruce and other trees, many of which still remain. He has also left another legacy of his remarkable skill - a sundial chipped out of a solid block of schist.
Since the acquisition of the cottage and its grounds for an historic reserve in 1980, the cottage has been restored in the style of the turn of the century. Mitchells is also one of the sites in the Otago Goldfields Park and is open for inspection. The grounds are used from time to time for weddings.