Museum News

People sometimes complain about Council rules and regulations.    There’s a feeling that it was much more relaxed in the past but was this really true?

The museum now has a copy of Martinborough Town District “The General By-law 1918”, a gift from David Lawrence.   With 153 tightly packed pages it shows that things weren’t so different a hundred years ago.   There were detailed building requirements and schedules of fees; rules covering the various building trades; and lots of stipulation about fire prevention and draining management. 

Of course some of the concerns were very different from modern ones.

Part III Section 19  declares it an offence for anyone who “rolls any cask, beats any carpet, flies any kite, uses any bows and arrows, or catapult or shanghai, or plays football, tip-cat or any game to the annoyance of any person in any street, footway or public place….” 

Barbed Wire was banned within the Town District.  The same was true for gorse (also called furze) – no new fences could be planted. Bicycles, vehicles and horses were treated as a single group, as you might expect at a time when the 3 forms of transport had to coexist on the basic roads.

The Museum’s Collection Policy

We love receiving treasures like this.  They say so much about the early life of the town and how people lived back then.    If you are having a spring clean don’t discard anything old without thinking whether the museum might be interested.   We do have criteria for what we accept and our limited space means we can’t always take everything offered but we do appreciate being asked.  

The museum is open Saturdays 11.30-3.30 and Sunday 11.30-1.30.  

Contacts:  Chris Cassels 021 0716 064, Mate Higginson 306 9745, Max Stevens 027 612 0659 

Photo caption; The WFCA (Wairarapa Farmers Co-op Assn.) The building is now the Bottling plant