About the Museum

Butler Point Whaling Museum is located at Hihi, near Mangonui in New Zealand's Doubtless Bay, a centre for whaling fleets in the 1820s–1850s. The museum comprises the house built in the 1840s by early settler William Butler, 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. The owners and curators who are members of the Ferguson family, 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. Whaling in New Zealand