Highwic Historic House

About

Highwic is one of the finest Carpenter Gothic houses in the country, a timber mansion built in the early 1860s off an American pattern book and extended by its owner across the following twenty years. Alfred Buckland was an auctioneer and stock trader with a very large family, and the house grew to hold them, which is why there is a boys' dormitory as well as a drawing room. Buckland descendants lived here until 1978. It is a Category 1 historic place, run by Heritage New Zealand, and the two and a half acres of grounds are rated a four star garden of significance with Norfolk pines dating to the 1860s. The gardens are free. Monthly guided tours and coal range baking mornings run in the 1870s kitchen. Wheelchair access is ground floor only.