Hinemihi: The House with the Golden Eyes

Tūhourangi, Ngāti Wāhiao

In the 1880s, Te Wairoa was a thriving village of about 150 people, catering to the stream of tourists on their way to see the Pink and White Terraces. Visitors were willing to pay a high price to visit the beautiful formations on Lake Rotomahana. Annual income for village residents was said to reach up to £4,000.

In the wharenui (meeting house) named Hinemihi, tourists were usually entertained with an extended haka and arrangements for daily trips were made. The eyes of the carvings on Hinemihi were decorated with gold sovereigns, which replaced the previous paua shell.

On the night of the eruption of Tarawera (10 June 1886), many people sheltered in the wharenui. For six years after the eruption, Hinemihi stood shrouded in mud at Te Wairoa. Then, in 1892, Lord Onslow (Governor General of New Zealand) bought the meeting house for fifty pounds.

Hinemihi was dismantled and shipped to Clandon Park in Surrey, England, where she was reconstructed as a boathouse.

Later, she was moved to the lawns closer to the house. After World War II, Clandon House and Hinemihi passed to the National Trust, which turned its attention to conservation.

She was initially restored with a thick thatched roof – an error probably made by her look when covered with mud!

In more recent times, Hinemihi has been restored with the help of Tūhourangi, and, in particular, the whānau of the late Emily Schuster.

This story comes from the original Great Te Arawa Stories website created by Ngā Pūmanawa e Waru (NPeW) Education Trust in 2018. To ensure consistency, minimal updates were made to the text before it was transferred to this new site.