Historic Places Trust
In October 1995, The New Zealand Historic Paces Trust registered the 13 Rotten Row baches at Taylors Mistake as a historic place. This was followed by the registration of 20 baches on Rangitoto Island in 1997 and the nine Red Rocks and Mestanes Bay baches in 2002.
NZHPT Recommendation for Registration
Baches were built at Taylor's Mistake and Boulder Bay during the early twentieth century on the 'Queen's Chain' of foreshore. The earliest baches were constructed in the late 1890s and around the turn of the century bach holders began to cut the Pilgrim's Way, a three kilometre track from Taylor's Mistake to Boulder Bay.
By 1911 there were thirty baches in Taylor's Mistake and Boulder Bay, most of them cave dwellings. The first hut in Rotten row appeared in 1913, built by a blacksmith, and by 1920 another dozen or so baches had appeared. The busiest building period seems to have been the 1920s and 1930s, when more baches were built and most of the older places were substantially rebuilt and enlarged.
The baches built at Taylor's Mistake and Boulder Bay were almost all used as holiday homes by Christchurch families, who spent their summers at the Mistake or the Bay. Most bach owning families seemed to have been lower middle class or skilled working people, making use of the small surplus income such families began to enjoy during the early twentieth century and taking advantage also of the tramway system and later the motor car.
Rotten Row is a row of thirteen baches, constructed of a variety of cheap building materials, and which stretches from the car park to the strangely shaped rock known as The Crocodile. Most of these baches have been in place since the 1920s.
For further information see the Historic Places Trust Website