Edmonds Ruins are the remains of a stone cottage and out-buildings built by John Edmonds and his family, who came to New Zealand in 1834 to work for the Church Missionary Society.
Edmonds was a stone mason sent out to erect the Stone Store at the Kerikeri Mission Station. By the time he arrived, the Stone Store was practically complete. He moved his family to the five acres of land he had purchased near the Kerikeri inlet. The stone house was built from about 1840 onwards using the basalt boulders occurring throughout the area.
The first part of the house was a gabled shingled roof over two rooms, two further rooms were added later with a separate gable roof with two dormer windows. An annexe was built to the west of the house, and further west was a small shed.
John Edmonds died in 1865, and members of his family continued to live in the house and farm the property. The main house was destroyed by fire in 1885 or 1886 and rendered uninhabitable. The annexe continued to be occupied and Edmonds descendants lived on the site until the 1950s.
Source: New Zealand Historic Places Trust