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The 124-year-old Birdcage Tavern has completed its epic 40 metre journey up a central Auckland hill today.
Its move was completed about 24 hours behind schedule but without problems.
Moving the heritage-listed brick building took two days and was described by some of the hundreds of people who stopped to watch as "the slowest pub crawl" they had ever attended.
The NZTA's State Highways Manager for Auckland, Tommy Parker, says the successful move was a significant engineering and logistical achievement. "The Victoria Park Tunnel team which took up the challenge has done a great job. In fact, it has made engineering history."
The historic building was originally built as the Rob Roy Hotel but later became a favourite watering hole for Aucklanders and gained iconic status.
It had be moved to allow work on the Victoria Park Tunnel project before it is shifted back to its original location after six months.
Hydraulic rams were used to push the 600-tonne building along lubricated concrete beams 40 metres up a hill off Franklin Rd.
The rams can stretch out for a maximum of 1.8 metres, but movements had been shorter so workers could continually monitor the hotel for stability and stress, engineer Adam Thornton said.
"At times it's looked more like a Formula One pit-stop under the hotel with our team hurrying about checking monitors and re-adjusting the rams."
It had been hoped the move would be completed yesterday but the building had only gone 19 metres by nightfall.
It was not surprising progress had been slow because it was a delicate building of bricks and mortar, Thornton said.
The building had moved another 9 metres this morning and completed its journey late this afternoon.
Parker, said clearing the brick and mortar building from its original foundations had made a considerable difference to the speed of the move.
"The hotel is now crossing ground that is stronger and more stable and this has enabled the team to extend the reach of the hydraulic rams pushing the hotel each time the building is moved," said Parker.
The NZTA was confident the move would be completed today, but Parker repeated this morning that time was not the issue and the priority remained to get the hotel to its destination safely.
In preparation for the move, engineers put reinforcing steel rods through the bricks and reinforced concrete on the rear concrete wall. Carbon fibre strips were also inserted in the old hotel's chimney to provide seismic strengthening.
When the hotel was built it was on the waterfront and in the last century reclamation moved the waterfront several hundred metres away, New Zealand Historic Places Trust archaeologist Bev Parslow said yesterday.
"There is a culvert underneath there as well and there are stories about people having rowed underneath the Birdcage."
The culvert was part of the Freeman's Bay stormwater system and the hotel scullery and basement floor were raised to accommodate it, she said.
When the basement was examined in preparation for yesterday's move, archaeologists found the original Shacklock Orion stove, specially designed to burn New Zealand lignite coal, and also a 100-year-old French coin and a mystery bone pendant.
A decision on the future use of the building has yet to be made.
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