Ferrymead Heritage Park is a museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, housing a number of groups with historical themes, the most frequent of which is transport. Formerly known as Ferrymead Historic Park, it was founded in the mid-1960s by a number of groups, local government bodies and other interested parties. It is in the Heathcote Valley, at the site of New Zealand's first public railway.
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This was the original name of the park. A number of groups came together in the early 1960s with a common interest in forming a museum of scientific and industrial history. Included in these was the Canterbury Branch of the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, which had formed in the late 1950s to cater for local rail enthusiast interests. A pilot project was set in Garvins Road, Hornby: their original proposed site was at Prebbleton, south-west of Christchurch. When that site became unavailable, interest was kindled at Ferrymead.
The Ferrymead Trust was incorporated in the late 1960s to represent the common interests of the societies at Ferrymead. For many years its day-to-day activities were controlled by committees made up of members of some or all of its constituent groups. The Trust relied heavily on local and national government funding and much of its early building and construction work was carried out by unemployed relief workers in central government employment subsidy schemes. By the mid-1980s the bureaucratic structure of the Trust was seen as unwieldy, and reforms were implemented to bring a more businesslike approach to its operations, devolving of day-to-day operations to appointed managers and representing society interests through a membership council.
The Trust continued to operate, but in the mid-1990s it had sustained heavy losses in the operation of the park, largely due to having a seven-day-per-week year-round operation with paid staff. As it appeared likely that the mortgage holder would foreclose on the park's assets, Christchurch City Council (CCC) assumed liability for the park's debt in return for hands-on management and the sale of various assets, including surplus land.
The CCC identified as a major stumbling block the operation of the park by numerous independent societies. In response, Ferrymead Park Ltd was established in 1998, a not-for-profit company owned by the Ferrymead Trust. The park is now managed and operated by Ferrymead Park Ltd, and receives CCC core-funding. The Park's Manager is Newton Dodge. Ownership and control of the various resources of the individual societies continues to be vested in these groups. During the company's tenure visitor numbers and turnover have increased, and Ferrymead now has the 'Qualmark' tourism endorsement. The number of volunteer groups involved in the Park has also increased. The maintenance of the grounds and buildings are predominantly carried out by paid staff whom are enthusiastically assisted by the efforts of a small team of staff and service users of IDEA Services Ltd, a division of IHC, the largest national organisation providing support and advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities.
The following societies are currently active at Ferrymead Heritage Park:
Several other societies have come and gone, notably the Ferrymead Military Museum Society. Heathcote Studios Theatrical Society is the most recent member.
The park is in the Heathcote Valley. Being close to the sea and low-lying, it was historically subjected to frequent flooding. A major event was the "Wahine Storm" of 1968, in which a large part of the site, then in embryonic development, was under water. This is no longer a major issue due to the filling of large parts of the site. Since the active involvement of the CCC began in the mid-1990s, flood and stormwater management have been implemented in the park and surrounding lands. The major project of the Heathcote Valley Park aims to integrate these along with the development of wildlife habitat areas and native plantings.
In the days of being managed by the Heathcote County Council, prior to local government amalgamation of 1989, part of the site was used as a rubbish dump. The raised location known as "Woods Hill" was formed artificially by the large-scale compacting of refuse dumped there over a number of years. This area is rather unstable land and buildings constructed there without appropriate foundations have been damaged by subsidence. The Tamaki Brothers of Rotorua have received substantial CCC assistance to construct a tourist Māori village on the site, which opened in 2007.