Guide

Heritage, Culture & Arts

Marlborough’s rich history runs wide and deep, from the earliest Polynesian settlers on Te Pokohiwi-o-Kupe/Wairau, Bar to the European pioneers who built towns and planted our first grapevines.

These people, the way they lived, and how they dealt with history’s major events has shaped Marlborough into what it is today.

Those stories are all here, waiting to be discovered all over again in the places where they happened or in our galleries, museums, art and theatre productions.

Picton Airport Heritage

Set in a valley between steep hills and surrounded by farms, Picton Airport is the base for Sounds Air – a local Marlborough airline founded in 1986 by Marlburians Cliff and Diane Marchant – and for Pelorus Air.

Located at Koromiko (halfway between Waitohi/Picton and Te Waiharakeke/Blenheim), the airport is also home to the Marlborough Sounds Airpark. The purpose-built residential airpark with private hangars on every section is by the taxiway so owners can taxi their planes straight to their hangars.

Koromiko was once a township with a church, railway station, general store and Waitohi School, later called Koromiko School, which closed in 2012 after 139 years.

Near Picton Airport, is historic church St John in the Wilderness. Located on the corner of State Highway 1 and Speeds Rd, the church was opened by Anglican Bishop Andrew Burn Suter (after whom the well-known Suter Art Gallery in Nelson is named) on April 4, 1871. It became a New Zealand Historic Places Trust registered building in 2009.

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