Peace Garden

The Peace Garden which at present is located behind the Rose Garden started its journey as the ‘Japanese garden’ around the mid-1950s on Myrtle Way (p3, Wellington City Council Archives, AR001-17). The garden used to host a cherry tree with other Japanese plants hence the name ‘Japanese garden’.

It became known by the name of ‘Peace Garden’ after the addition of the peace flame that is housed in a traditional Japanese lantern. The garden today truly lives up to its name ‘Peace’ in other ways of with the stone from Hiroshima City Hall and waterfall in the background.

The lantern was officially accepted by Mayor of Wellington, Michael Fowler, on 6 March 1976 and it was gifted to Wellingtonians by the Japan Society of Wellington NZ (Inc). The lantern symbolises the long-lasting friendship between two countries. There was a formal registration of interest issued by the Council requesting public to submit the design to host the flame. The final marrying of these two taonga into one happened in 1994 and is captured in one of the pieces of correspondence linked below (Wellington City Council Archives, 00444-23/60/40 Part 2).

It was Wellington who led the way in becoming a nuclear-weapon free zone on April 14th, 1982, with Aotearoa New Zealand being declared Nuclear Free in 1984. The peace flame was gifted to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington on 5th October 1990 by the Japanese Peace Committee from Tokyo’s Toshogu Shrine in recognition of the city's anti-nuclear stand. The flame was originally lit from the fires of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The flame was held at Karori Cemetery and lit by kerosene until the council decided on its final place. It finally found its new home in 1994 at the Peace Garden. The flame was formally placed in the Peace Garden by Mayor Fran Wilde and Shinto priest Mamoru Niwa of the Toshogu Shrine, Ueno in Tokyo on 25 June 1994.

It is an honour to host the flame in this rohe (region) as it is the only city outside Japan, and Aotearoa New Zealand the only country to host the flame. While the taonga still lit today in the Peace Garden, there are other ngā tohu (symbols) of rongo (peace) around the garden. One of them is a camphor tree also known as ‘Nagasaki’ tree, as the origin of the tree began at Nagasaki. While everything surrounding Nagasaki was burned to the ground due to atomic bombing, it was this tree which regrew and is a symbol of hope and new beginnings for Japanese. Three trees were propagated from this tree in Nagasaki and gifted to Christchurch city by Mayor Itoh of Nagasaki in 2002. The tree here in Wellington was from one of those trees gifted to us by Christchurch city.

As the President of the Japan Society of NZ Robert Wheeler said about the lantern in 1975 it is ‘the light being shone on the path of friendship and understanding’. The ‘Peace Garden’ is a tribute to our collective stand as a city for anti-nuclear weapons inclusivity for all and reminds us of our duty as a public to maintain the peace and friendship for longevity.