page_title: Linwood House
section_title: Various owners (1913–1988)
hierarchical_section_title: Linwood House / History and ownership / Various owners (1913–1988)
caption_attribution_description: English: Bracing installed at Linwood House after the September 2010 earthquake.
context_page_description: Linwood House was built as the homestead for Joseph Brittan, who as surgeon, newspaper editor, and provincial councillor, was one of the dominant figures in early Christchurch, New Zealand. The suburb of Linwood was named after Brittan's farm and homestead. Brittan's daughter Mary married William Rolleston, and they lived at Linwood House following Joseph Brittan's death. During that time, Rolleston was the 4th Superintendent of the Canterbury Province, and Linwood House served for many important political and public functions.
  The property went through many changes in ownership. Land was successively subdivided; at its peak, 110 acres of land belonged to Linwood House, of which only 2,013 square metres remain. For some years, Linwood House was used as a private day and boarding school for girls. The house declined during the mid 20ths century, was used for flats for several decades, and was in 1985 described by an historian as the "city's worst example of a house which should be preserved being left to decay". The house's fortunes improved when it was purchased in 1988 by people sympathetic to heritage.
context_section_description: Although the Hiorns had descendants, the estate was managed by the Public Trustee, who put Linwood House up for sale as four sections, with one of those holding the house itself. Three of the sections were purchased by Thomas Marker on 4 June 1913 in an auction, including the one containing the building. Marker paid £200 each for the building sections, and £1,250 for the section containing the house. The furniture of Linwood House was sold in a separate auction. The house was rented to lawyer Francis Ion Cowlishaw, son of prominent provincial councillor William Patten Cowlishaw (1839–1903). Cowlishaw senior had lived nearby in a house named 'Chaddesden', and Cowlishaw Street and Chaddesden Lane are named after the family.
  Francis Cowlishaw purchased Linwood House in 1916 for £1,592. In 1920, a dance of Christchurch's social elite was held at Linwood House.  Cowlishaw sold the house later that year to Mrs Ethel Pyne, the widow of Frederick Pyne (d. 1915), who was a business partner of former Linwood House lessee Alexander Boyle. Immediately after the purchase, Ethel Pyne engaged Sidney and Alfred Luttrell to design a £700 extension to the house, and it is assumed that this was the addition of a second storey to an earlier service wing. Further subdivisions were carried out in 1927 and 1932, after which Linwood House was sold to Florence Simpson in the latter year. Simpson in turn undertook subdivision in 1935, before selling the remainder to Gordon Branthwaite, a solicitor, in 1945. Records reveal that by 1948, there were six residents living at Linwood House, indicating that the house had been set up for flatting in the meantime. Branthwaite subdivided the land behind Linwood House in 1958. He died in 1972, and his widow sold the property in the same year to Advance Buildings (Nelson) Ltd; her daughter was a partner in that company. Local historian John Wilson, who in 1984 wrote the book Lost Christchurch, that year called Linwood House the "city's worst example of a house which should be preserved being left to decay".
caption: Bracing after the 4 September 2010 earthquake; in the background the 1889 wing designed by John Whitelaw
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