Canterbury Museum

12/06/2026

Here are three views of a Christchurch laneway lost to time. 🕰️📸🏛️

Chancery Lane provided a shortcut from Gloucester Street to Cathedral Square from the early days of Christchurch and was officially named in 1881.

The black and white photograph was taken in 1905, the same year the Regent Theatre was completed in Cathedral Square. The theatre’s distinctive dome looms over Chancery Lane in the 1925 etching by James Fitzgerald.

The laneway was transformed over the following decades, becoming Chancery Arcade in 1969, getting a big revamp in 1981 and providing a home for The Chancery Tavern and Restaurant, the glitzy Palladium nightclub and De Larno’s Magic Centre.

The final photo shows how the laneway looked just after the September 2010 Canterbury earthquake. In March 2015, the laneway and arcade were demolished to make way for the new convention centre, Te Pae.

Remember any big nights at the Palladium? Share your Chancery Lane memories below.👇

Read more about Chancery Lane’s colourful history: https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/blogs/post/goodbye-gloucester-street-west-chancery-lane/

Images:
Chancery Lane in 1905. Canterbury Museum 19XX.2.215

A James Fitzgerald etching of Chancery Lane in 1925. Canterbury Museum 1971.222.1

A photograph of the same view in September 2010. Café Cecil. BY-NC-SA 2.0

11/06/2026

LAST CHANCE DINO ALERT 🦖⏳🔥

This weekend is your last chance to get amongst the amazing dinosaurs at the ‘Canterbury Museum Pop-Up’.

Stomp along to ‘Dinosaurs: Surviving Extinction’ before it goes extinct.

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

10/06/2026

Take an interactive trip through some of the 2.3 million objects in the Canterbury Museum collection.

In this talk, Canterbury Museum Associate Curator Natural History, Johnno Ridden, takes you on a journey through the fascinating web of connections across the collection.

These treasures tell fascinating stories about people, Canterbury and the world.

A Friends of the Canterbury Museum talk.

Take an interactive trip through some of the 2.3 million objects Ca...

09/06/2026

Remember Claude the Kiwi?📸🥝

This giant fibreglass and steel kiwi stood in a commanding spot above Colombo Street from the 1970s until he was moved to Orana Park on 10 December 1988.

Claude used to spin slowly when he was first installed, but workers in the building below were driven to distraction by the motor noise, so he was immobilised.

His original home was on the roof of the Combined Co-Operative Distributors at the corner of Tuam and Antigua Streets, before he was craned down in 1969 and moved to Colombo Street a few years later.

Got any memories of Claude? Do you know when he was first installed on Colombo Street? Share below. 👇



Image: The corner of Colombo Street and Carlyle Street on 5 October 1983. Canterbury Museum 2019.10.3764

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

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

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

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

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

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