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Next year, it will be 70 years since one of Warkworth’s oldest buildings was uprooted from its foundations in Percy Street and hauled on a trailer to Church Hill to become the permanent home of the Warkworth Brass Band, as it was then.
The former school room has since witnessed the band’s musical fortunes wax and wane until its recent evolution from traditional brass to a full strength 20-piece big band.
Unfortunately, while members were mastering their instruments inside, the band room itself has slowly slipped into a state of disrepair, as new recruit and builder Phil van der Mespel recently discovered.
“I’m the newest boy on the block – I only bought a saxophone 18 months ago,” he said.
“I came along for a few weeks and after my second or third visit I found there’s a building committee and I’m on it.”
When the band asked van der Mespel to take a look around with a view to providing extra storage and repainting the exterior, he quickly discovered much more than that was required.
“It’s in a deplorable state. I said you’d be putting lipstick on a skeleton – you need to do the foundations,” he said.
“They’re untreated native timber and they’re rotting. We need to give this baby a real makeover starting from the ground up – replace the foundations, fix the windows, add a veranda, lift the building up and, while we’re at it, turn it around if we can.”
This is because the band room was actually installed back to front – at the rear of the building there are large ornate windows and design details currently hidden from view.
Van der Mespel said rotating the room by 180 degrees would also mean three large sash windows would face an open space between the building and Warkworth Playcentre. He would like to see that sloping area drained, to stop water running under the band room, and a seating/picnic area put in, so that on a summer’s day, the band could play inside with all the windows open, while people relaxed outside.
However, the band needs help with such a big job, so has launched a fundraising appeal to raise what will cost tens of thousands of dollars.
“We, as a community, need to save this building. It’s beautiful, it’s ornate, it’s part of our town and part of our heritage,” van der Mespel said. “This is not just a Warkworth band project, it’s a community project. There aren’t many buildings left like this now.”
Long-time trombonist Ross Lynch said without the band room, there may not even be a WBB Big Band, as it is now known.
“This building is responsible for keeping the band alive,” he said. “So many good bands end up disintegrating, because they don’t have a base like this.”
Life member of the band and local historian Dave Parker, who remembers seeing the band room almost sliding off its haulage truck as it was being shifted in 1956, agreed it needed to be saved.
“Heritage Mahurangi sees it as the preservation of part of our local heritage,” he said. “It’s quite possibly the oldest wooden commercial building in Warkworth.”
The band’s building committee has already had scaffolding erected at the back of the room and has been given a start with some timber, thanks to the generosity of Absolute Scaffolding and ITM Warkworth, but now they need to start fundraising in earnest.
“We don’t know the real costs yet, we’re going through an exercise of seeing what’s available, who’s interested and what they can offer,” Lynch said. “But we could be looking at $50,000 to $60,000.”
As well as the structural fixes, the band needs to renovate their limited toilet and kitchen facilities, as well as make the building fully accessible to all.
“This will ensure the band room continues to serve the community as a safe, welcoming space for music and events, and be a place for young musicians to learn,” van der Mespel said.
For more information or to make a donation, visit https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/save-historic-warkworth-bandroom
