Reviews
Below are a selection of reviews about the experience of visiting Katherine Mansfield House & Garden. We love to get feedback, so leave your own review via our in-house feedback postcard, on Tripadvisor, Google Reviews or our Facebook page - or send us a good old fashioned email!
Google Reviews, Tripadvisor and our in-house feedback postcards
"The depth of research presented throughout the house is fantastic! One of the best house museums I've ever seen." In-house feedback postcard, May 2026
"While Katherine Mansfield did not live in this particular house for very long, the house is filled with lots of memorbillia and exhibits an extensive timeline board of her life. You could spend a hours here reading this and admiring, not only the house but the well presented garden. Any easy walk from the CBD where we were staying." Google Reviews, September 2025
"Fascinating, amazing house that she lived in. Great they [are] keeping her history and maintaining the house. Many thanks to the young lady who was working there. Full of knowledge about Katherine's life and shared it with full of excitement." Google Reviews, September 2025
"A must visit place to honor one of NZ's literally greats. Also the young lady who warmly welcomed us was well informed and very accommodating." Google Reviews, January 2025
"Just beautiful and really detailed information of her life. Very lovely host too who gave us a warm welcome to start our visit." Google Reviews, July 2024
"This was such a fantastic experience for me, as I am a huge fan of Katherine Mansfield. The house is beautiful, and really affordable entry price." Google Reviews, October 2023
"A great experience and beautiful house. Katherine’s life was so perfectly documented and the tying in of places to her stories was excellent. Lovely warm and informative welcome." Tripadvisor, January 2026
"Beautiful and unspoilt house of NZ’s modernist writer KM’s small childhood but it carries so much more within its walls about NZ and its rigid society, changing morals and women’s history from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Friendly and knowledgeable staff are very engaging. The timeline and room descriptions are littered with KM quotes. Even if you know her work it makes you realise just how remarkable she was and how sad that her life was cut short so young and that she never wrote a full novel." Tripadvisor, November 2025
"An important piece of NZ history. Carefully researched restoration of Mansfield's birthplace with an interesting outline of her life. A nice combination illustrating both the way of living for middle-class NZers around 1900 and the life of the famous author. Well worth a look. There's a great 'eye spy' activity sheet for the little ones, that's actually good fun for the grownups!" Tripadvisor, June 2023
Travel blogs, articles and publications
'The sun is shining through the gently waving fronds of a Nikau Palm; there are cabbage butterflies and monarchs flitting across the path and fluttering around the carefully planted borders of the garden...The front door of Katherine Mansfield house is wide open, like a good Kiwi home's front door should be, waiting to invite visitors into this quiet, sacred, temple to one of New Zealand's treasured cultural touchstones...as I pay my $10 and accept the little guide pamphlet I feel a bit like the first time I voted: like I'm taking part in a sacred duty.' Kylie Klein-Nixon, Stuff.co.nz
'I soon discovered that there was a lot more to Katherine than I previously realised...What I really enjoyed as I passed through the various different rooms, were the excerpts from Katherine’s works and letters which have been placed around the walls. These have been thoughtfully chosen to bring out an aspect of life that would have taken place in a particular room...I lived in Thorndon for several years, and somehow never found the time to take that 15 minute walk down Tinakori Road! In some ways it was worth the wait, because I gained the advantage of the restoration and all the new information which this brought to light.' Carole, Coconut Lands travel blog
'Going to Katherine Mansfield's birthplace is not unlike visiting the Treaty House, in that the history associated with the place almost overwhelms the building.' Linda Burgess, Historic Houses: A Visitor's Guide to Early New Zealand