Sharing and showing artefacts and heirlooms

Puhoi Cottage & Scandrett Homestead

Michelle Edge

Some heritage sites are remote and rustic and don’t suit fancy lights, high-tech materials, moving parts, and digital dials. Instead, you can introduce small-scale, low-cost displays. Here are two such exhibits, recently installed, which utilise gifted objects and second-hand display ‘furniture’.

A portion of the Puhoi paraphernalia display, including buttons, beads, bottles & broken china

Puhoi Cottage Paraphernalia

Archaeologists have treasure troves of artefacts which often don’t see the light of day. With their blessing, I used some artefacts recovered from ‘a dig’ to hint at the lifestyle of the Schischka family, who once holidayed in a bach beside the Puhoi River. Most of the objects displayed in this exhibit are from the 1890–1920 era. These mostly worn-out or broken objects had been dug into a rubbish pit behind Puhoi Cottage, only to be unearthed by archaeologists around 100 years later.

An old printer’s tray (worth $80) with many compartments was ideal to show a range of these items. Some gems like a tram conductor’s button, a bone-handled toothbrush, and bits of a German-made porcelain doll feature in this small yet complex exhibit. This display is tucked into a light-filled corner of Couldrey House in Wenderholm Regional Park, just a short beach walk from the site of the excavation.

Scandrett Homestead

When the Scandrett family gifted items back to ‘their homestead’ (now in Auckland Council’s care), we found a simple way to display them. Clustering them on the mantlepiece means they are safe from being knocked over, but also at a level easy to view. Here we display, among other things, the matriarch’s apron, the husband’s barometer, the grandfather’s A&P Show trophy (1915), the farm’s stock records, and an intriguing mini accordion made in ‘Czechoslovakia’.A kauri and totara desk also gifted by the Scandrett family has been recently returned to its original location by the fireplace. Ron Scandrett’s school report—which had been hidden or had fallen behind the drawers of the desk—came to light recently when the desk was being restored.

A simple mantlepiece display of a family's treasured and personal items

The next step at this site is to place some old beehives in the garden, where their honey shed once was, for interpretation about Lisadian Honey, the Scandrett’s own honey brand. These additions complement some extensive interpretation already in place at Scandrett Regional Park.