Longwood, Historic house in South Wairarapa District, New Zealand

Longwood is a 1906 brick country house south of Featherston, designed by John Sydney Swan in Scottish-baronial style and remodelled from 1913 by William Gray Young into a neo-Georgian interior with a Lutyens-inspired exterior. It has over 40 rooms, including 16 bedrooms, and stands among formal gardens with a sunken garden and lily pond. Surviving outbuildings include a cowshed, granary, coachhouse and stables.

The estate was rebuilt following a fire in 1905, with the current building completed in 1906. The original house from 1857 belonged to Henry Bunny before it was destroyed.

The grounds hold a sunken garden modelled on one at Hampton Court, with statues of the four seasons, and a lily pond fed by a water race. A 1923 greenhouse, heated by a boiler, grew table grapes, lettuces and flowers through winter. The Riddifords held charity garden parties here in the 1920s and 1930s.

The site sits on Longwood East Road in South Featherston and maintains its original architectural elements through ongoing care. Visitors should allow time to explore both the main house and the older farm buildings on the grounds.

The willows on the grounds grew from cuttings General Arthur Bunny took at Napoleon's grave on Saint Helena and sent to his brother Henry, who had named the house after Longwood House, Napoleon's exile residence. Some of those trees still stand at Longwood today.