The Western Bay Museum's collections and exhibitions tell the in-depth stories of our history, our people and our places.
The Western Bay Museum’s collection mainly originated from the old Katikati Heritage Museum with more significant objects being donated once Western Bay Museum was established. Now that we have a museum qualified Collections Curator we are focussing more on collecting objects from across the Western Bay of Plenty region.
We are slowly cataloguing our collection onto the eHive database. Click here to see what is on there so far.
Highlights of our collection include:
- The Samuel Middlebrook collection of taonga Maori from around the district.
- Objects belonging to the original Ulster settlers including clothing, furniture and household items.
- A collection relating to the early industries of the area including dairying and kauri.
- A large collection of objects from the 20thcentury including domestic technology.
- Objects relating to the two World Wars.
We are now focussed on collecting objects relating to the industries of the Western Bay of Plenty now including avocado and kiwifruit growing and more.
We are developing a Handling collection for use by groups in the museum and to take into the community. Work on this is also ongoing.