Horowhenua College Main Building in Levin, which opened on 6 February 1940, has historic significance for its connection to politician Peter Fraser and the expansion of access to secondary school education under the first Labour government (1935-49). An architecturally significant building designed by prominent educational architect Bertie Fleming Kelly, its distinctive rectangular form enclosing a grass quadrangle has not been substantially altered. The building has aesthetic value as a local landmark and is treasured by the school community past and present, affording it social significance.

Horowhenua College was preceded by a secondary school department added to Levin School in 1905, a practice common in rural areas. By the mid-1920s student numbers exceeded capacity and the government was petitioned to create a separate secondary school. The lobbyists gained little traction until the Labour Party became the government in 1935 and Peter Fraser was appointed to the education portfolio. Under his watch access to secondary education was greatly improved; now children had to just complete Standard Six rather than pass an exam. Horowhenua College was a tangible expression of Fraser’s well-known 1939 statement ‘that every person…has a right as a citizen, to a free education….’ The previous year he had laid the school’s foundation stone, in his speech noting the government’s commitment ‘to bring to every child…equal facilities for education.’

Designed by architect to the Wellington Education Board, Bertie Fleming Kelly, and constructed by McMillan Brothers Builders, Horowhenua College Main Building is a multi-level rectangular weatherboard-clad building with a large grassed quadrangle in the centre that is completely enclosed on all four sides, a feature which affords generous light and ventilation. This unusual design was shared by King’s High School in Dunedin, though unlike Horowhenua College, the buildings enclosing a quadrangle were built over three years (1936-39) and are no longer extant. It faces Bath Street, which acts as an extended view shaft from State Highway 1 (Oxford Street), making the building something of a local landmark.

In 1965 the library on the first storey of the main south-east elevation was shifted into three classrooms and this space became the staffroom. The interior of the main building was remodelled in 1977 to accommodate new classrooms and offices. The entrance foyer was restored in 1989 and escaped damage when a fire was deliberately lit in the single storey block to its immediate left. The badly burned roof and back wall were repaired to match the existing fabric the following year. In circa 2010 a recessed entry on the quadrangle side of the foyer was removed. Six years later new entrances with ramps were added to the north-east and south-west-elevations, classrooms on the north-east elevation were reworked to accommodate five science laboratories and the original main double doors were replaced with replicas. Jubilee booklets published in 1965, 1990 and 2000 have recorded the main block’s history, indicating the importance placed upon the building by the school community over generations.