Customised Booking

Instead of choosing one of our standard programmes, we invite you to “mix and match”.  Ferrymead Heritage Park’s customised bookings can cater for up to 75 students per visit, or you can spread your visit over several days. 

Choose from the activities listed below, each of which usually runs for half-an-hour. Some are subject to availability of our expert presenters.

  • Arcadia Picture Theatre – experience an old-style picture theatre.
  • Bakery – make a biscuit and find out about an authentic wood-fired oven.
  • Cottage tour – visit and compare pre–1900 New Zealand homes.
  • Pioneering Crafts – view and make an item from the Victorian era.
  • Electric circuits – create light, sound and movement by making your own electrical circuits.
  • Gears and Levers – investigate simple machines through working models and artefacts.
  • General Store – work as a shop apprentice for the Hill’s and find out about retailing the old fashioned way using your measuring, counting and weighing skills.
  • Hall of Flame – view heritage fire-fighting engines and equipment. Try on some fire-fighting clothing.
  • Hall of Wheels – be guided around this unique collection of past modes of transport by Ferrymead staff.
  • Heritage Games – play traditional games from the early 1900s.
  • Housework – try your hand at pre-electric housework.
  • Indoor Toys and Games – investigate and play with toys and games of the 1950s.
  • Musical Equipment over time - investigate the technology of recorded music in the home, and use a 1950s tape recorder.
  • Packing the Trunk – help pack a truck with necessities for life on board an emigrant ship of the 1860s.
  • Picnic Games - Experience the excitement of picnic games of the past, from egg and spoon races to our washing race.
  • Post & Telegraph – use communication equipment from the past.
  • Printing – see how printing machinery has changed over time.
  • Rural history – view early farm machinery and household items.
  • School house – use authentic school equipment from another era and find out more about teachers and their methods of motivating students.
  • Sound Experiments – investigate ways that sound can be sent and received.
  • Tram – visit the tram barn and see restoration projects in progress.
  • V-hut – try some daily tasks of an 1850s pioneer.
  • Wheels experiment – test a variety of wheels on different surfaces and compare their performance.
  • Wind, water and solar – use working models to investigate these energy forms.

Telephone: (03) 384 6492
Email: heritage@ferrymead.org.nz