Te Toi Uku

The Portage Ceramics Trust was formed in 2005, in order to purchase a large private collection of ceramics and pottery-making equipment. This collection related to Crown Lynn Potteries Limited, a highly successful New Zealand company which operated from 1948 until 1989. Their products were in virtually every New Zealand home.

Clay-based industries and arts have been part of the west Auckland community since the mid-19th century. In 2015, Te Toi Uku Crown Lynn and Clayworks Museum opened in New Lynn to showcase this ceramics history.

The museum holds examples of most types of ceramics produced by Crown Lynn. It also features tools and machinery, and an archive of documents, photographs and designs.

The collection showcases objects from the 1880s to the present, and demonstrates the advances in manufacturing techniques developed by Crown Lynn and others over that period, as well as changes in fashion and design.