Tophouse Historic Inn

The inn offers B&B rooms and self-contained cottages. Its Prickly Vine dining room serves booked meals, with at least 24 hours’ notice required. Don't count on being able to walk in for coffee or a meal, and don't assume guest facilities are open to day visitors.

Māori used this natural pass for travel before European settlement. European accounts place its exploration in the early 1840s, and the route became an important inland link from Nelson toward Wairau, Canterbury and the West Coast. A telegraph station opened at Tophouse in 1876; a post office followed in 1891 and operated until 1931.

An accommodation house stood here by about 1846; a later building burned in 1887. Nathaniel Longney commissioned cob builder Ned James to build the present inn around 1887–88. The traditional cob walls were formed without boxing, then trimmed and plastered once dry—a practical building method that gives this low, substantial house its distinctive character.

In October 1894, Bill Bateman killed telegraph linesman William Wallis and innkeeper John Lane, then died by suicide. Bullet holes associated with the killings remain in the verandah roof. They make the building’s history tangible, though this is a sobering part of the visit.