Preserving a City's Heritage

Following the devastating February 2011 earthquakes in Ōtautahi Christchurch, the city needed to find a way to retain and store many heritage items from Council owned properties in the event they could be reused in future projects. This included the Provincial Chambers, Mona Vale, Godley House and several other historical sites within the city. It was a priority to ensure the city didn’t lose historical pieces that had been an important part of the landscape pre-quake.  In addition to saving treasures from inside the buildings, building materials from premises that collapsed, including chimney pots, granite stone, bricks and window frames, needed to be appropriately stored for future use during the restoration and rebuild.

Until recently, many of these materials have been stored at a Christchurch City Council site. However, with the Council commencing development on the site all items needed to be transported to, and safely stored in, a new fit for purpose site. That’s where the Citycare Property team came into play. Bruce Wilson, Trades Supervisor and Gary Stokes, Handyman, along with other members of the trades team have been responsible for the safe transportation and storage of all items at their new site.  The job, which has taken close to ten months, will be finished by the end of October, and it has required a great deal of care and meticulous commitment to detail.

Each item, including bricks, stones and wooden framings, has been catalogued, tagged and included in the database so that it can be easily found and recovered for future use. The Citycare Property team has worked alongside a team of architects and historians to accurately document and record what has been stored where. In addition, there has been a structural engineer on site to ensure storage pallets are braced correctly and safely.

“We have had to take a considerable amount of care with every item as some of the wooden window frames and profiles are extremely delicate due to their age. The stone and bricks will be reused across the city,” says Gary.

From here the team will be responsible for managing the storage of items until they are ready for future use. Items that need to be in weathertight storage have been homed in one of three large sheds, bricks have been stored in pallets that are wrapped to protect against the weather and stone has been carefully stacked into catalogued piles.

“The job has been a real learning curve for me, and it’s been incredibly interesting working with such a knowledgeable team of experts. I feel particularly privileged to have been working with these historic pieces which are part of our city’s history,’ says Gary.

To give an idea of the size of the task, there are close to 3000 crates of materials in the pallet stacks. That’s in addition to the materials stored inside the three sheds and 98 pallets of red bricks from Mona Vale as well as the loose stone from the provincial chambers and Godley House. The team made on average nine trips each day for the ten month period with the trucks filled to capacity.

Citycare Property has worked closely with Christchurch architect Tony Usher, heritage expert Anthelia Gibson and structural engineer Grant Wilkinson. The project has been managed by Nicky Hamiliton from Christchurch City Council.