Canterbury Museum

Canterbury Museum Visit Canterbury Museum Pop-Up to enjoy collection highlights and temporary exhibitions while our Rolleston Avenue buildings are being redeveloped.
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LINKS: linktr.ee/canterburymuseum The Canterbury Museum at CoCA pop-up is the place to see an ongoing display of collection highlights and visitor favourites from the permanent galleries while the Rolleston Avenue site is redeveloped. Taonga (treasures) on display represents the breadth and depth of the Museum collection ranging from taxidermied animals through to historic objects from the Antarct

ic, Mountfort and Early Settlers galleries. Visitors can see beautiful taonga Māori and Pasifika alongside tools used by mana whenua for mahinga kai (food gathering). Two firm visitor favourites – the horse from 'The Christchurch Street' and Ivan Mauger’s gold bike – are also be back on display.

Here’s a high tech treat. 🚀🕹️🐄These 1980s control panels may look like they are from a spaceship, but a closer look reve...
05/06/2026

Here’s a high tech treat. 🚀🕹️🐄

These 1980s control panels may look like they are from a spaceship, but a closer look reveals they had a far more earthbound purpose.

The buttons on the white and grey panel read MUTTON, BEEF and PIGS. Other buttons are labelled BLEEDING CONVEYOR, BEEF SAW, OFFAL RAIL and VISCERA TABLE.

It’s not clear what the other two panels were used for, but we do know that the cheeky little unit with the cute legs was about as high tech as it got in 1980s Christchurch. 🤖🦿😄

Can anyone identify exactly what these panels controlled? Share below. 👇



Images:
Blue control panel by Norm Smith Electronics. Canterbury Museum 1992.96.36642
Abbatoir control panel by Bremca. Canterbury Museum 1997.206.1971
Beige control panel by Bremca. Canterbury Museum 1997.206.1704

You only have two weekends left to see the dinos! 🦖🥚🦴🦕Bring the whole family along to the 'Canterbury Museum Pop-Up' thi...
03/06/2026

You only have two weekends left to see the dinos! 🦖🥚🦴🦕

Bring the whole family along to the 'Canterbury Museum Pop-Up' this weekend to see giant replica dinosaur skeletons, discover buried bones in the dig pit and touch real fossils. You will also encounter a nest of baby dinosaurs that were discovered perfectly fossilised in China.

Stomp along to “Dinosaurs: Surviving Extinction” before the exhibition closes on 14 June.⏳🔥

Read more: https://www.canterburymuseum.com/visit/whats-on/dinosaurssurvivingextinction

Here’s a map mystery dating back to 1870. 🧭🗺️🔍A detailed map was hung on the wall when Canterbury Museum first opened in...
02/06/2026

Here’s a map mystery dating back to 1870. 🧭🗺️🔍

A detailed map was hung on the wall when Canterbury Museum first opened in 1870. But was it lost forever?

Created by Museum founder Sir Julius von Haast, the map of Canterbury and Westland was based on his many years travelling across the South Island as the Provincial Geologist of Canterbury from 1861 to 1868. Haast trekked the country, collected rocks, and painstakingly surveyed the landscape to create the map.

But as the Museum developed, the map was eventually removed from display sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. It disappeared into the Museum's collection and was not sighted for many decades.

But then a researcher's question set off a quest to find it…

Read more: www.canterburymuseum.com/explore/our-stories/searching-for-the-museum-founders-epic-map

This is a very special sunhat. It reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain on this day in 1953. 🌏🏔️Sir Edmund ...
29/05/2026

This is a very special sunhat. It reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain on this day in 1953. 🌏🏔️

Sir Edmund Hillary wore this striped cotton sunhat, which was made for him by his sister-in-law, when he climbed Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay.

They were the first people ever to reach Everest's 8,848-metre summit, which is the highest point on Earth. They spent about 15 minutes at the peak before starting the journey back to base camp and into the history books.

The sunhat was gifted to the collection by Sir Ed in April 1972 to launch the Museum’s funding appeal for a new Antarctic Gallery.



Images:
Sir Edmund Hillary’s sun hat. Canterbury Museum 1972.53.1
Hillary and Tenzing were the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Photo: John Henderson. CC 3.0

These New Zealand soldiers are about to fight in one of the most dramatic battles of World War Two.They are on their way...
28/05/2026

These New Zealand soldiers are about to fight in one of the most dramatic battles of World War Two.

They are on their way to Crete and have most likely just been evacuated from Greece following the rapid German invasion in April 1941. Once in Crete, a force of 7,700 New Zealand soldiers fought alongside British, Greek, and Australian troops in a desperate bid to repel a German airborne invasion of the island.

On 20 May 1941, the dawn sky filled with thousands of German soldiers parachuting onto the island. The Battle of Crete lasted 12 days and ended with the evacuation of thousands of Allied troops to Egypt.

By the end of the battle, 671 New Zealanders were dead, 967 were wounded and 2,180 were taken as prisoners of war.



Image: New Zealand soldiers on their way to Crete in 1941. Canterbury Museum IL2010.10.3422

Old and new come together in this striking photograph of 1980s Christchurch. 🏛️🏢📸 The Massey Harris Farm Implements buil...
27/05/2026

Old and new come together in this striking photograph of 1980s Christchurch. 🏛️🏢📸

The Massey Harris Farm Implements building, which dates back to at least the 1920s, is surrounded by the more modern Heritage Hotel on the right and the Bank of New Zealand’s office looming in the background.

The photographer was probably on the roof of the Old Government Building, looking southwest across the block bounded by Hereford Street, Colombo Street, Cathedral Square, Worcester Street and Tramway Lane.

It’s a view that would be completely different now. The Massey Harris building was demolished sometime in the late 1980s or early 90s, while the BNZ building and the eastern wing of the Heritage hotel were both demolished after the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes.

Do you have any memories of the Massey Harris building? Do you know when it was demolished? Share your stories below. 👇



Image: A group of buildings near Cathedral Square. Canterbury Museum 2017.79.1589

When artist Dick Frizzell went to Antarctica in 2005, only one of the many paintings he created in response included ice...
21/05/2026

When artist Dick Frizzell went to Antarctica in 2005, only one of the many paintings he created in response included ice or snow.

This painting, which is now in the Museum collection, captures the 'Chapel of the Snows' at McMurdo Station on Ross Island, set against the backdrop of the Ross Ice Shelf stretching to the distant mountains.
Built from scrap in 1956, the chapel is the world's southernmost religious building. It burnt down in 1978 and was rebuilt in 1989, complete with stained-glass windows featuring penguins.

Dick Frizzell, known for his pop art depictions of Kiwi icons like the Four Square man, responded to his Antarctic experience with a series of naturalistic still-life paintings of Scott Base’s historic huts. They showed old crates that once contained lamp oil for Scott’s 1910 expedition, a sewing machine, a kettle, tins of food, a recipe for scrambled eggs and a hardy old stove. The painting of the chapel stands out against these closely observed interiors.

Perhaps the artist is saying that to endure Antarctica you need a wide range of home comforts, but also a little bit of faith.

For more inspiring stories, redevelopment updates and cracking yarns follow Canterbury Museum’s epic journey of change on the new section of our website. Link in the bio: ourjourney.canterburymuseum.com/

Image: ‘Chapel of the Snows’, a 2006 oil painting by Dick Frizzell. Canterbury Museum 2014.44.1. Image courtesy of Dick Frizzell.

This is how you watched a movie on the go in 1932. 🍿📽️📸The Regent Theatre in Cathedral Square used this novel mobile cin...
20/05/2026

This is how you watched a movie on the go in 1932. 🍿📽️📸

The Regent Theatre in Cathedral Square used this novel mobile cinema to promote their latest film ‘The Easiest Way’, starring Clark Gable and Constance Bennett. The film ran at The Regent for a couple of weeks in early September that year.

In the photo, the mobile cinema is parked in front of the Regent Theatre, next to the Post Office building on the right. The Post Office building still stands, but the Regent Theatre, complete with its dome perched high above the square, was demolished after the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. The demolition ended a run of almost exactly 80 years for the cinema, stretching from August 1930 to September 2010.

Share your memories of the Regent Theatre below.👇 Can you remember the talking parrot that used to live in the foyer? 🦜

Image: A mobile cinema showing ‘The Easiest Way’ in Cathedral Square in 1932. Canterbury Museum 1982.122.49

17/05/2026

Happy International Museum Day! 🏛️🏛️🏛️🏛️

In 1910, one of the Selwyn County Council staff looked different to everyone else.Miss Abraham was a typist in a workpla...
14/05/2026

In 1910, one of the Selwyn County Council staff looked different to everyone else.

Miss Abraham was a typist in a workplace dominated by bearded men. She was one of many women who entered the workplace from the 1890s onwards as typists and shorthand writers. Working in an office or in journalism was an attractive option for well-educated young women who did not care for a career in nursing or school teaching, the few other options available to them. They were often accepted by male employers because they could be paid less.

Canterbury Museum Senior Curator Human History, Julia Bradshaw, has explored the history of women in the workplace through the story of trailblazing Christchurch businesswoman Lucy Hart. Lucy started working as a court stenographer in 1907 and over the next 30 years became one of the highest-paid women executives in Australia.

You can read more about her fascinating story here: www.canterburymuseum.com/explore/our-stories/a-christchurch-womans-journey-from-typing-school-to-top-executive



Image: A photograph of the Selwyn County Council in 1910 includes Miss Abraham, typist. Canterbury Museum 1953.164.1

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