Gallery: Enterprising Ashburton businesses

The Ashburton District has had a long history of thriving businesses, of which there have been an impressive number and variety. Coachbuilders, factories, agents, retail stores, and many more enterprises, big and small, have played their role in supporting our local economy and communities. Let's take a look back at a selection of photographs of...

Gallery: Historic houses big and small

Below you will find a selection of images from the Ashburton Museum & Historical Society Inc. collection, which showcase an interesting variety of houses from our District's past. The architectural styles, sizes, and shapes of these homes say something about the people who built them. Their ambitions, their self-perceptions, access to resources, and of course...

Just a little over 200 years ago, on Christmas Day, 1814, Reverend Samuel Marsden conducted what is widely regarded the first formal Christmas sermon in New Zealand’s history. His was not the first Christian service to take place in New Zealand on Christmas Day. Both the voyages of Abel Tasman in 1642 and James Cook...

Among the extensive archive collections at Ashburton Museum is the original Ashburton Hospital Admission Register. Covering the period 1882 to 1908, it contains over 3500 entries that shed light on patients, treatments, lives (and deaths) of many people from Ashburton. A major project has been to transcribe these records, now that enough time has passed...

Deciphering stories from certificates

Since the 1840s New Zealand’s land transfer and title records have been paper or parchment based. It was not until 2002 that records of land transfers and titles were electronically managed. In Ashburton Museum’s archive, local land transfer records date back to the 1860s. There are also some land title documents, usually associated with personal...

I was working on a series of clipping files pertaining to local businesses. Amidst the modern articles about openings and closures, I came across an envelope with photocopied photographs of the Bank of Australasia – a building which still stands on the corner of East and Tancred Streets. I was especially interested a series of...

What is heritage? And why does it matter?

  World Heritage Day is celebrated each year in April. Also known as International Monuments and Sites Day, 18 April is a special day to celebrate the diversity of heritage throughout the world. At the Ashburton Museum, we think about heritage all the time. Our staff and volunteers are fortunate to work around historic objects...