King Edward Park Hāwera

Commissioned in 1875 and opened in 1902, the park commemorates the coronation of King Edward VII. The two oak trees standing near the main entrance were planted during the opening ceremony. 

Intended to showcase plants suited to the South Taranaki environment, the park has been designed around a formal base of two intersecting avenues.

Championed by community leader and horticultural enthusiast Charles Goodson, many of the specimen trees and plants he introduced still remain today, notably the tōtara hedge planted in 1905, along with extensive daffodil beds, of which he was a noted breeder, and scented Luculia, a species he introduced to New Zealand. After his death, the Hāwera Horticultural Society created the Goodson Memorial Garden, which offers spectacularly colourful rhododendrons and azaleas.

Equally spectacular is the park’s model boating lake, an expansive man-made pond that reflects surrounding trees and floral borders, and is home to many ducks and the occasional model yacht or power boat.

The park gates were erected to mark the Hāwera Industrial Exhibition of 1904 and the District’s troops lost in the South African War. The statue of pioneer farmer Albert Arthur Fantham has surveyed the park for a century.

Constructed in 1851, the old naval cannon, which never fired a shot in anger, and the park’s observatory, which began life as a band rotunda over a tea kiosk, were both installed in 1912.

A unique feature is the Wendy Statue, created in England to commemorate Hāwera mayor James Campbell, who died in office. The sculpture is the companion piece to the statue of Peter Pan in London’s Kensington Gardens and has been in place since 1951.

Built by the local Lions Club the pirate ship and tree fort continue the Peter Pan theme and offer a popular playground.