Harry Atkinson, the Premier of New Zealand, named Hurworth after a village he had lived in as a child in England.

Atkinson contributed to the establishment of the settlement; he built what is now known as "Hurworth Cottage", from what a sawyer had taught him.

Hurworth Cottage was the only building standing in the area after the war in 1861, but its floor had been set afire.

The area afterwards grew into another small community, and in 1967, the cottage was given to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust by its then-owner, Robert Brown.

[1][3] The Pouakai Zoo is located in Hurworth and includes lions, meerkats, tammar wallabies, black-handed spider monkeys and a female lar gibbon.