Some may remember the Mittagong Butterfly House and the Castle Maze which stood on the corner of Bessemer Street and Bowral Road, where McDonald's now is.

Southern Highlands resident Tim McCartney discovered an unexpected reminder when he stumbled across an old Butterfly House sign in a second-hand store in Camden.

"I came across this beautiful old original hand-painted sign of the Butterfly House in a thrift store near Sydney, I was told it was saved by one of their volunteers and kept safe for years," Mr McCartney said.

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Mr McCartney moved to the Southern Highlands in 1988 and fondly remembered visiting the Butterfly House.

"It was quite unique, the butterflies would fly around and land on you, it was lovely."

Mittagong's Butterfly House was the second of its kind in Australia, inspired by a larger house at Melbourne Zoo.

Ernst Weiher, a curator from Melbourne Zoo, helped owner Joyce Yeates set up the Mittagong house, with Ms Yeates' son running an attached cafe.

Equally as popular, the Castle Maze stood adjacent to the Butterfly House.

The maze was designed and built by Ian Mackey and his business partner David McLaren.

It was 3D and consisted of 1.5km of ground level and overhead paths.

"We were getting buses calling in and we had a lot of weekend travellers coming in looking at it," Mr Mackey said.

"The problem was we didn't own the land. It was owned by Mittagong RSL and McDonald's offered them a price they couldn't refuse, so we had to vacate and demolish it."

Both the Castle Maze and the Butterfly House closed in 1994.

Mr McCartney, who is currently in possession of the old Butterfly House sign, would like it to remain in Mittagong as part of its history.

Although, he said he would be open to sharing it with the Berrima Museum to be put on display there.

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