Butler Point Whaling Museum
Museum at Hihi, New Zealand
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Butler Point Whaling Museum is located at Hihi, near Mangonui[1] in New Zealand's Doubtless Bay, a centre for whaling fleets in the 1820s–1850s.[2]
The museum comprises the house built in the 1840s by early settler William Butler,[3] an earlier Church Missionary Society house from the Waimate Mission moved to the site by Butler, both fitted with original furniture, and a recently built whaling museum, with a restored fully equipped whaling boat, tryworks, a collection of harpoons, models, scrimshaw and artefacts from the whalers who called into Doubtless Bay, including Charles W. Morgan. There are also substantial gardens and grounds surrounding the museum, including a 10.9 metre circumference pōhutukawa tree, claimed to be the world's largest.
Butler House is listed as a heritage building by Heritage New Zealand, and the grounds have been formally recognised as a Garden of Significance by the New Zealand Gardens Trust.[4][5] The owners and curators who are members of the Ferguson family,[4] a retired ophthalmologist and his wife, live in the grounds.
The museum sits on historically significant land that tells the story of early Māori settlement and connection to local iwi.[6]
