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Something we take for granted in NZ is our ability to move buildings. These are often transported long distances with many technical difficulties to overcome. However, this exercise is not just a modern day occurrence. From the very early days in this country, moving buildings from one place to another seemed to be undertaken without a second thought. This is rather surprising given the fact that buildings in England were not designed to be transported and even today are more usually shifted by demolition and rebuilding.
The first house built by William Prictor, on land at Port Albert, was moved some distance up a hill and down the other side in 1873. The shift was done using rollers (tree trunks) underneath – a huge task, as each log had to be repositioned once the house had rolled over it. With no worries about wiring or plumbing, the family spent each night in the house during the move. It eventually settled in a central part of the farm.
Other houses were shifted as roads improved and rivers became less important as transport routes. One built near the Hoteo River was shifted by Cliff Grant to MacPherson’s farm. The late Max Reid told me that their house on Port Albert Road was moved from a site by the river on Wellsford Valley Rd. The house at 5 Davies Rd, originally built by Frank Curel, was shifted by the Smart family from Rodney St to its present site in 1950s. Later times saw the relocation of the power station houses, just south of Wellsford, to School Rd.
Another interesting move came when George Pook purchased a Keith Hay house which was considered difficult to deliver by road. It was loaded onto two barges at Port Albert Wharf. At high tide, it was towed by George’s launch Calypso and Everard Judd’s Norwest, and safely beached at Whakapirau to the surprise of the locals waking up to the new arrivals.
Maybe the ability of bullock teams to shift huge logs from the forests, some on tramlines and others over rough terrain, made the idea of repositioning buildings feasible. In some ways it was so much easier then, with no need to obtain resource consent and permits.
Transporting more than just houses became the usual solution when a building was no longer needed. Relocation to a new site was adopted by many local churches. The hall at the Port Albert Methodist Church was previously the Port Albert boarding house dining room and, in an earlier move, came from nearer the shoreline where it had been the gum store. Even earlier, it was probably the original store commissioned by W.R. Brame as a supply depot for the earliest settlers.
Others on the move were the Church of Christ built in 1906 in School Rd to its present site in Rodney St in 1934; the Port Albert Church of Christ was moved to the same site in 1941. The Te Arai church was moved in sections in 1935 to become the new North Albertland Church, and in 1946 the redundant Woodcocks Church of Christ, from Kaipara Flats, was moved to become part of the church on Mangawhai Rd. The Hoteo Church of Christ moved to the youth camp at Mangawhai in 1955. The Anglican Church was transported to Tauhoa in the same time period and later, the Presbyterian Church moved up Rodney St to become the new Co-Op Parish Church after the removal of the original Wellsford Methodist Church to Tomarata. The Catholic Church had also moved back from the edge of Rodney St to its present site in Matheson Rd.
The old Wellsford School was first shifted first from its site at Old Wellsford by the two bridges, to the corner of Rodney St and School Road. In the 1970s, it made another trip to the Golf Club on the Warkworth/Matakana Rd, where it remains, albeit a little altered. The demise of the Farmers Trading Company and redevelopment of that site saw the manager’s house moved to Waipu and the Lodge also relocated. The original Police house was shifted to Torbay where it became the home of a retired policeman. The original police cells at Port Albert were shifted into Wellsford and are, I understand, still in use.
