The Featherston Courthouse, opened in 1895, sits on the main thoroughfare through the busy rural centre of Featherston. It has historical significance as the centre for justice in this community for over 80 years and architectural significance for its English Domestic Revival style, also used in other courthouses designed by government architect John Campbell. The first Māori arrivals settled in Palliser Bay in the late 1300s. Early iwi groups were Waitaha and Ngāti Māmoe, both of whom subsequently left Wairarapa for Te Waipounamu / the South Island. Later arrivals were Ngāti Ira, Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu. Ngāti Ira later relocated to Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington, while Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu forged a largely peaceable co-existence in Wairarapa, with conflict tempered by intermarriage. The region was invaded on a number of occasions, in the early 1820s by Ngāti Whātua and Ngāti Maniapoto, and from the mid-1820s through the following decade by Taranaki tribes, in particular Te Āti Awa. Rangitāne people found a temporary safe haven in the Puketoi and Tararua mountain ranges, while Ngāti Kahungunu made a series of migrations north to Nukutaurua on the Māhia Peninsula. However, Ngāti Kahungunu leaders kept an eye on their Wairarapa rohe and sent taua or war parties back to fight the invaders. They returned for good in the early 1840s when peace was made with Te Āti Awa. By then Pākehā explorers were assessing the settlement potential of Wairarapa and in 1844 Wellington settlers leased grazing land off Ngāti Kahungunu and brought the first sheep and cattle into the region. The first land sales occurred in 1853, including the Ōwhanga block, on which the future town of Featherston would be founded. The town was surveyed in 1856 and named after Isaac Featherston, the superintendent of the Wellington province. It had previously been the site of Henry Burling’s accommodation house and known as Burlings; Kawaewae and Paeotumokai were the Māori names for the area. Featherston was divided into town and suburban sections. The first court sitting in the Wairarapa, conducted by Resident Magistrate Herbert Samuel Wardell (1830-1912), was held in Featherston in 1860. Featherston was established as the chief courthouse for the Wairarapa area. A purpose-built courthouse was constructed but by 1883 it was disparagingly described as ‘a cross between a decayed school-house and an insolvent corn and straw store’ and ‘one of the oldest, rottenest, dirtiest, evil smelling, wretchedly small, and utterly inconvenient and unsuitable places for the administration of justice which the human imagination can conceive.’ A new courthouse in Featherston was designed and constructed the following year in 1884. But this second courthouse and the adjoining Royal Hotel and attached stables were destroyed by a fire in 15 July 1893. The third and currently extant Featherston courthouse was designed by government architect John Campbell (1857-1942) in 1894. It was completed the following year. In contrast with his later designs, this single-storeyed Courthouse reflects the more homely style of English Domestic Revivalism. Other aspects of other styles are also present. The segmented windows are a reference to the Italianate villa and in the gables we can see a Tudor influence. The division of the upper sash of the window into twelve lights is an English Georgian Revival aesthetic. Press at this time deemed the building to be ‘an imposing little edifice’. This courthouse dealt with minor civil and criminal cases until it was disestablished by proclamation in 1978. It was given to the South Wairarapa District Council by the Justice Department and now has a new purpose as the Featherston Information Centre.