New home urgently needed for old Upper Hutt printing presses

May 4, 2021

The collection in Upper Hutt is stored in a World War II bunker.

The hunt is on to find a permanent home for a number of printers and presses lying in storage in Upper Hutt. 

The printers and presses are currently tucked away in rented storage space and an old World War II bunker, and are part of the country's only dedicated printing museum. 

"It's one of the biggest collections in the world. It's the biggest in Australasia, most likely the southern hemisphere," secretary Dan Tait-Jamieson told 1 NEWS.

The collection has been built up over 30 years, but finding a home is proving difficult.

"If you don't find a home, the whole collection is at risk, it might go somewhere else," he said. 

"We recently rescued a lot of equipment from the Melbourne Museum of Printing. I was fighting off scrap metal dealers for these wonderful treasures."

The Wellington City councillor in charge of the arts says funding a new museum is not a priority.

The museum wants to grow and its sights are on a empty, earthquake prone building on Buckle Street, which is owned by the Defence Force.

It wants to redevelop the site and is unwilling to share the space. 

The future of the collection remains up in the air.

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