Masonic Lodge Westport

In Westport, the Masonic Lodge is doing what it does in most other New Zealand towns, sitting one street back from the main road and remaining unobtrusive to the eye.

How it does that here in Westport, is by occupying a residential section, being constructed from local timber, and sporting a pretty cottage garden and picket fence out front.
This has been how it has been since 1903 when the Lodge was constructed. Some grander lodge buildings have proved too much for the local branch to maintain, but no such problem here and it also has a spot on the Heritage Register. The Lodge caught the eye of Photographer Laurence Aberhart as being within his oeuvre.

For more information on the West Coast arm of the international organisation, there is an unusually 'open' former lodge re-homed at Shantytown, which provides the lay-person with a look inside the rooms of the 'society with secrets.'