Howick Historical Village is a living museum which presents life in a Fencible village, during the early settlement of Europeans in Auckland.
The Fencibles were retired soldiers who signed up to emigrate to New Zealand, mostly from Ireland and the midlands of England.
They were offered a new life in New Zealand; a free passage with their families and a cottage with an acre of land to become theirs after a seven year term, in return for certain military duties including compulsory Sunday church parade.
In all, ten ships brought the Fencibles to Auckland from 1847 to 1852 and their decendants still live in the area (not in the village) today.
When you enter the village everyone there is in costume and events are enacted, like a courthouse trial. There are potatoes from Captain Cook’s era scattered over an old table in one of the cottages. There is peeling floral wallpaper, carefully pasted up over 100 years ago, which still clings to the wall.
Even dried cowpats sit by the fire, ready to be used as fuel on a cold day and seaweed hangs outside by the front doors — if it’s moist, it means rain must be on the way. There were gingerbread men baking over an open fire and Christmas pudding steaming in the embers; even Christmas carols were playing in the big house.
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