Daisy Hill Farmhouse was built in c.1857 – 60 by Robert Bould (c.1807-1875), a Staffordshire boot and shoemaker who settled in Johnsonville as one of the district’s first sheep farmers. Robert, his wife Ann (c.1816 – 1884), and their two oldest children, were New Zealand Company ‘assisted migrants’ who arrived on the Lord William Bentinck in May 1841. They settled first in Wellington, but moved to Johnsonville in 1853 where Robert raised a flock of up to 250 sheep, at a time when the valley was covered in dense tracts of forest and bush.
The family purchased approximately 140 acres of freehold land at Section 96 of the Ohariu District, and built Daisy Hill farmhouse in c.1857 – 60. They leased a further 145 acres of ‘Native Reserve’ land at Section 8 of the Kinapora District.
The farmhouse is a simple two-storey weatherboard structure with a steep-pitched hipped roof and a verandah on three sides. It was built in a simplified Georgian style that is similar in form to colonial dwellings in Auckland and North Auckland. Robert and Ann raised a family of seven (surviving) children at the farm and the couple lived at Daisy Hill until Robert’s death in 1875. The property was then prepared for sale, and a new lease agreement settled for the ‘Native Reserve’ land for £87 a year. Newspaper advertisements of 1876 described the farm as “substantially fenced, with a good dwelling-house, &c, &c, and a flock of sheep (mixed), about 450.” Ann Bould appears to have joined her daughter, Mrs Clapham, in Ngauranga - where she died in 1884, but the house and farm may not have been sold immediately, as Robert Bould (junior) noted his address as Daisy Hill Farm later in that year.
Daisy Hill farm was subdivided in the c.1940s – 50s. State Housing was built along Bould Avenue on the former Native Reserve land, and Johnsonville’s West Park School was built in 1956 on the site of the Daisy Hill hay meadows. The former Daisy Hill farmhouse is now located on an (approx) 1/5th of an acre suburban site in the midst of suburban housing that dates from the 1950s – 2000s. A visit to the cottage in 1997 found that there was evidence of original match-linings underneath the modern wall and ceiling finishes. Early examples of wallpaper were found in some rooms, and other rooms were lined in newspaper. The floors were tongue and groove, and the living room retained the original fireplace.
