Visitors will soon be able to experience Vallance Cottage and hear its stories without a volunteer having to be at the historic site. 

Central Otago District Council’s (CODC) Vallance Cottage working group has come up with a creative solution to make the cottage and reserve more accessible to people without the need for volunteers. 

In the past few years, a call for volunteers to keep the cottage open for visitors has not been very successful.

 A remote locking system has been installed to unlock the front door at 9am and relock it at 4pm, allowing access for viewing by koha (donation), without a volunteer being present. 

The working group aims to have this operational from September to April each year.

The cottage’s popular open days will continue and the working group will be on hand to talk about the cottage on September 25 and October 23, 10am to 2pm.

With assistance from the Otago Museum, the working group is going to bring the stories of the cottage to life using QR codes.

The proposal is to have museum students collate stories and information and add it to on the Vallance Cottage and Reserve page on www.centralotagonz.com.  

Cottage visitors can then scan the QR codes, found throughout the cottage and reserve.

CODC property and facility officer Christina Martin said a visitor will click on the QR code to look at the family album to see what life looked like in the 1900s.

“The potential to grow the interactivity is really exciting to the working group, but the first aim is to get the cottage open and available to the public to enjoy.”

While in the early stages of planning, the aim of this work is to enable visitors to have an interactive experience.

The working group, which includes the descendants of William and Jean Vallance, has a number of photos, written recollections, and oral history of the cottage, but is keen to receive more.  

People can contribute by going onto the Council’s webpage (under Upload files – Vallance Cottage). CODC’s Facebook page will be updated once the cottage is open.

The next Vallance Cottage working group meeting is September 15, 12 noon at the Council’s Alexandra Service Centre, 1 Dunorling Street.