This poster presents the assessment of historic seismic bridge performance of the New Zealand highway bridge stock from the 1968 Inangahua earthquake through to the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. Spatial ground motion details based on recorded and observed ground motion intensities were used to estimate the peak ground acceleration (PGA), as a measure of the seismic demand at each bridge location. Across all events PGA of 0.05g or greater was experienced on approximately 800 occasions at bridge sites. Damage characteristics were collated from available literature, with the majority of the bridges experiencing either no damage or only minor damage across all events. To further assess the performance in historic events, outcomes from a national-scale seismic screening process were utilized. The majority of bridges performed well in the historic earthquakes, with only a few bridges experiencing significant damage. Some shorter bridges may have performed well due to the effect of abutment stiffness and damping. Similarly, some longer bridges performed well due to integral abutment response and wall type piers that likely have higher capacity than originally assessed. These findings will inform future assessment methods and design, and inform assessment of the accuracy of analytical models of the bridge stock.