Nairn Street Cottage is Wellington's oldest original cottage. It was originally built by the Wallis family, who lived in the cottage for three generations. Tours of the cottage are available to hear about these early British colonists and their descendants, and the garden is open daily during daylight hours. Nairn Street Cottage is classified as a "Category 1" historic place by Heritage New Zealand.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage buildings in New Zealand. It was set up through the Historic Places Act 1954 with a mission to "...promote the identification, protection, preservation and conservation of the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand" and is an autonomous Crown entity. Its current enabling legislation is the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014.