The Whanganui Musicians Club, site of the city's original museum, now has a blue heritage plaque on its wall. Photo / Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust
The Whanganui Musicians Club, site of the city's original museum, now has a blue heritage plaque on its wall. Photo / Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust
The Whanganui District has two new blue plaques on its historic buildings after the homestead and stables at Bushy Park Tarapuruhi and the Whanganui Musicians Club building were added to the recipients.
The plaques are a local project adopted by the Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust, as part of a national initiative by Historic Places Aotearoa (HPA) which is a national heritage advocate for independent heritage groups.
The new plaques were officially unveiled by Heritage New Zealand chief executive Andrew Coleman on Saturday.
A morning ceremony at the forest sanctuary was attended by staff and volunteers of the Bushy Park Tarapuruhi Forest Trust, members of the Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust and Whanganui MP Carl Bates.
The buildings, designed by architect Charles Tilleard Natusch, were built for owner Frank Moore in 1906 and the cattle and racehorse breeder bequeathed 89ha of land and the buildings to Forest & Bird in 1962. Forest & Bird has retained title to the forest, and the Bushy Park Trust took ownership of Bushy Park Homestead and the area around it in 1995.
The homestead is leased to Dale Pullen who provides accommodation, meals and function rooms in the category 1 Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga listed building.
Whanganui Regional Heritage Trustee and deputy mayor Helen Craig said the timing was perfect as the Bushy Park Trust had just concluded its annual general meeting.
“They came straight from that to the unveiling and we had a nice morning tea provided by Dale and staff afterward.”
The second unveiling was held in the afternoon at the 130-year-old Whanganui Musicians Club building on Drews Ave where the city’s first public museum was housed.
Designed by Alfred Atkins, the building was erected in 1893 to house the collection developed by Samuel Drew, a well-known local watchmaker and jeweller who had a keen interest in natural history and had been making his collection available at his family home.
After the museum moved to its current Watt St building in 1929, the Drews Ave building housed The Savage Club, named after the English artist who had founded a network of men’s clubs in England. The Savage Club Hall sign still hangs over the building’s front door and some still refer to it by that name.
Bushy Park Tarapuruhi supporters and volunteers at the plaque dedication. Photo / Whanganui Regional Heritage Trust
Craig said it was a pleasure to host the national heritage organisation’s chief executive to unveil plaques on two such significant sites.
“Andrew had never been inside the Savage Club building and he found it fascinating,” she said.
“Heritage New Zealand is the central government organisation and it’s fantastic that they are supporting the cost of the plaques and working with regional heritage groups like ours to support the recognition of our listed buildings.”
There are now 10 plaques in Whanganui and the former BNZ building in Raetihi, restored by Bernice Frost and Anthea Hatfield, was awarded a plaque in 2021.
Craig said the aluminium plaques were cast by a specialist company in Dunedin.
There is a Historic Places Aotearoa Blue Plaques website run by Whanganui-based company Kiwiwebs that lists all the buildings in Aotearoa that currently have the plaques.
“There’s also an app in the development stage that will make it easier for people to find them when they’re on the go,” Craig said.
Craig, who has been Whanganui’s HPA representative working with trustee Ann McNamara on the plaques project, has now handed the baton to Whanganui Regional Museum director Bronwyn Labrum who has joined the HPA executive.
Three Whanganui heritage sites have significant anniversaries coming up and they will be the next recommendations for plaques.
“There are so many buildings in this region and we haven’t put an upper limit on it,” she said.
“We have streets where all the buildings have heritage listings so we’d look at one plaque for the whole street.”
Liz Wylie is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. She joined the editorial team in 2014 and regularly covers stories from Whanganui and the wider region. She also writes features and profile stories.
