-
Watch Video
-
Related
Work has stopped for the night on Auckland's landmark Birdcage building, which has been shifted nearly half of its intended journey today.
It was originally expected to take up to 10 hours to move the 124-year-old Heritage building, now 40 metres up Franklin Road in Freeman's Bay, but work will now resume tomorrow morning.
The Birdcage
completed 19 metres of its move , but NZTA Auckland State
Highway manager Tommy Parker said the delay is by no means a cause
for concern.
"We are comfortable with the progress we have made.
"There is no rush to get the job done - our priority is to make sure the Rob Roy completes its journey safely and that will take as long as it takes," he said.
The journey should be completed around midday tomorrow, with workers preferring to ensure the building remains fully intact rather than risk significant damage.
The old Rob Roy Hotel is being moved due to work on the nearby Victoria Park Tunnel and was going at a rate of about 1.5 metres per hour since 7.45am.
In spite of the slow progress, a number of interested onlookers
gathered throughout the morning, with Auckland City Mayor John
Banks joining the throng of curious people to reminisce.
"This was a downtown Auckland pad and it was quite good fun," he
said.
The former publican's son, Perry Layne, also shared his memories of the landmark.
"I used to help dad out with the stocktakes on the Sunday and count every last bottle and every little thing and add them all up on the big sheet," he said.
When the move is complete, excavation work will be finished on the Victoria Park tunnel before the old hotel is slid back to its original site.
How it happened
Hydraulic rams slowly and gently pushed the building along concrete beams covered with Teflon, specially constructed for the move.
Each stroke of the rams was supposed to move the building 1.8 metres, and as it did it was thoroughly checked for cracks between each push.
Engineers said the biggest risk in the shift is any ground movement below the beams - particularly given Auckland's recent rain.
In preparation for moving the 600-tonne brick building, engineers put reinforcing steel rods through the bricks and put reinforced concrete on the rear concrete wall. Carbon fibre strips were also inserted in the old hotel's chimney to provide seismic strengthening.
Consultants for the move were from the same company which moved the Museum Hotel in Wellington in 1993 and the Cornish pumphouse in the Bay of Plenty gold mining town of Waihi in 2006.
The five-storey, 3500-tonne hotel was moved 120 metres down an inner city Wellington street on railway tracks. Had it not been moved it would have been demolished to make way for the new Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa.
The Cornish Pumphouse, a relic of the original Martha gold mine in Waihi, was built in 1904, from a design used in the tin mines of Cornwall, England.
The 1840-tonne building housed pumps needed to keep the mines dry but became unstable because of underground mining. It was strengthened and moved 300 metres along teflon-coated concrete beams to a new site in 2006.
When the Rob Roy was built on the Freeman's Bay waterfront in 1886 it was in "a real slummy area, quite separate from the rest of the city", said New Zealand Historic Places archaeologist, Bev Parslow.
"It was almost on a little island, a heavy industrial area, a working-class industrial, residential area.
"There is very little of the 19th-century landscape left there."
The cost of the move will total $2.4 million, to preserve what Parslow labelled a fascinating part of Auckland history.
After six months they will have to do it all over again, when
the hotel is moved back.
Latest NZ News Video
-
ONE News Minute 9am update: May 26 (1:00)
-
Kids cough up $14m for Government (1:50)
-
Education ministry 'barbaric' (1:55)
