Manawaru Heritage Centre - The Manawaru Historical Society

The Manawaru Heritage Centre was the vision of David Bay who founded the Manawaru Historical Society in 2011. The Manawaru Historical Society is the overall umbrella organisation of the Manawaru Heritage Centre.

With the help from Community View, a new community facility which boasts a café and function/recreation centre, with climbing wall, the Manawaru Historical Society was gifted, at peppercorn rent an area of the historic Dairy Factory. This is situated in the heart of the village of Manawaru.

We opened our doors, after a turbulent 2020, on the 23rd September 2020.

It is the mission of the Manawaru Heritage Centre to provide a space for the display of local interest items and use them to tell stories and explain the importance of Manawaru History, especially in dairying, on a national stage.

The Heritage Centre is also used as a place of education, giving children and adults a chance to understand the area through the perspective of the past.

The Centre also helps preserve and record histories from local families, so the knowledge of a generation cannot be lost. This will be a project focus for 2021. This will hopefully be stored in an online archive that can be accessed by researchers and the general public.

Our Vision:-

- To encourage and promote interest in Manawaru District History.

- To collect and preserve documents and artefacts, relating to the history of the Manawaru District and families, and coordinate displays in the Heritage Centre, and to bring life to the past.

- To research into the history of the District and its families.

- To educate and further the knowledge in the next generation of Manawaruites, members of the Matamata-Piako District, and greater public visiting the area.

- To be a place of gathering for our community – to be community led and community run.