Buffalo sails into Warkworth Town Hall
Celebrating a permanent home for the painting of HMSS Buffalo. From left, Peter Henderson (Warkworth Town Hall Trust), Cimino Cole, Barry Ferguson (who contributed funding for the painting) and Alex Hayward.
A painting depicting the British navy store ship HMSS Buffalo arriving in the Mahurangi harbour found a permanent home at the Warkworth Town Hall last month.
HMSS Buffalo off Spar Station Cove depicts the arrival of the ship in 1834 to inspect facilities for producing spars for the Royal Navy.
Gordon Browne’s spar station can be seen in the background – the first European settlement in the Auckland region.
Cementing an historic link
The commemorative trowel, which has spent most of its life in a drawer, will now by on permanent display in the town hall. Pictured on the day it was handed over are Don Wilson and his wife Helen.
A Warkworth artefact has returned to the town after an absence of nearly 100 years.
The commemorative trowel has been in the Wilson family since Nathaniel Wilson used it to lay the Coronation Stone at the Warkworth Town Hall on June 22, 1911.
Last month, his great grandson, Don Wilson, 93, of Auckland, handed it over to hall manager Alex Hayward. “It’s quite amazing to see it returned,” Alex says.