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From issue: February 2002

Meeting Many Interests

by Elizabeth Cox

The Historic Places Trust's new Register website is easy to search and explore.

Children of Worser Bay School in Wellington exploring the Historic Places Trust's new Register website Picture: Dean Whiting

As well as improving the information on the Register, an important goal of the Register Upgrade Project has been to ensure that everyone has access to it. An internet site has been designed to present all the information gathered by the three researchers working on the project. This site will become a major asset to those interested in New Zealand's heritage. The address for the Trust's Register on-line site is www.historic.org.nz/register. (If you don't have access to the internet, you can access the information by contacting your local Trust office).

Search facility

The Trust is constantly surprised and pleased by the wide range of topics that people passionate about New Zealand heritage are interested in. As a result, the Trust had to ensure that people could search for a wide variety of topics. For example, someone writing a history of a family who lived on the West Coast may be interested in historic houses in Hokitika; or a rail enthusiast may be curious about how many places that relate to the development of the Main Trunk Line have been registered; or another person may wish to know about places relating to the Kingitanga (King Movement) in the Waikato. Similarly, those interested in New Zealand archaeology may want to look up a particular battle site, or a student writing about the development of a particular architectural style in New Zealand may wish to explore the work of an individual architect.

To allow all those interests, and many others, to be served, the site has two search pages: a simple page and one that provides for some of the specialist users of the Register, such as archaeologists. Within these two pages you can search on:
· The name of a place;
· The address (by street, city, region or local
· authority);
· The current or former uses of a place;
· The architect, designer, engineer, sculptor etc.;
· The dates a place was created or modified;
· What type of registration a place has been given by the Historic Places Trust - as a category 1 or 2 historic place, an historic area, a wahi tapu or a wahi tapu area;
· The site reference given to archaeological sites.

The Gables, New Plymouth. Picture: Historic Places Trust

The various search pages are available on www.historic.org.nz/register/search or you can access them through the Register's introductory page. To use the search functions, type in the information you would like to search on, and then press the "Search" button. You don't need to fill in all the search boxes, only those you want to search on.

Mona Vale Gatehouse, Christchurch. Picture: Historic Places Trust

Please remember when you are searching that the site is a work in progress. At present it contains around 1,000 of the 6,000 places on the Trust's Register. Currently this includes every category 1 historic place, plus some category 2 places. Not all the information for all of these places has been entered. We will continue to work on this. We will also be adding information and photos about more and more places every couple of months, so if you can't find what you are looking for at first, look again next time you visit the site.

The reports

If there are any results of your search, a page will come up which lists them. You can click on any name on the screen to get to a report about a particular place. At the time of writing around half of the category 1 historic places have had reports written about them, as have some category 2 historic places. More reports will be added in the months to follow. If a detailed report hasn't been written yet, information on the name, address and registration of the place, and sometimes a photo, will still appear.

Te Waimate Mission House. Picture: Historic Places Trust

If the place you have clicked on has a report, you will find photographs as well as information about the significance of the place, its history, its former and current uses, and why it is important to our understanding of New Zealand's heritage.

Reports have been written about a wide range places, such as the winery complex at Te Kauwhata near Huntly, which played a major role in the development of the New Zealand wine industry, the Blockhouse in Upper Hutt which was erected in 1860 for Pakeha settlers who had formed a small militia in response to fear of local Maori, and the statue of Captain Robert Scott in Christchurch. You can find out more information about all these places and many more by exploring the Trust's new site.

Upper Hutt blockhouse Picture: Grant Sheehan

The Trust is committed to ensuring the accuracy of the Register and associated reports. Information on the site is correct to the best of the Trust's knowledge. However, if you find information you believe may not be correct, or have additional information you wish to share with the Trust, you can e-mail the Trust directly from the website using a link at the top of each page.

Elizabeth Cox is the Heritage Policy Analyst in the Historic Places Trust's national office.

*For further information about the legal requirements and nature of the Register, see the Historic Places Act 1993, Part II.