[2] Samuel Marsden established the Anglican mission to New Zealand with lay preachers, who lived in the Bay of Islands under the protection of Hongi Hika, the chief of the local tribe, the Ngāpuhi.

Using Māori and skilled European labour, Butler had completed the centre piece Mission House by 1822, (despite being interrupted by the return of Kendall and Hongi Hika with a thousand muskets, and Kororipo being used as a base for the subsequent Ngāpuhi military campaign in the Musket Wars).

Butler was sacked in 1823,[3] and George Clarke occupied the building until the early 1830s, by which time the Ngāpuhi had abandoned Kororipo, but the mission station was strong enough to feel no need for protection.

Mission House was added to the New Zealand Historic Places Category 1 list on 23 June 1983.

In 2000, two writing slates were discovered at Kemp House, used for Māori language writing practice by two girls who had attended the misson school including Rongo Hongi, daughter of the renowned Ngāpuhi chief Hongi Hika.