Dunedin Railway Station heritage
There’s a line we tread carefully when we’re working on heritage buildings – what do we restore faithfully using the original methods, and what do we restore sympathetically in a way that ensures the building will stay in the best shape for the longest time?
At Dunedin Railway Station, where we’re repairing the 115-year-old roof, we’re collaborating with a team of specialist tradespeople, the heritage architect Phillip Hartley from Salmond Reed Architects, and Dunedin City Council to ensure that we make the best possible decisions for the building.
We’re removing the lichen-covered terracotta roof tiles one by one and stacking them on pallets for sorting, cleaning and re-use. The tiles were originally wire-tied to wooden battens, which we’ll be removing to install building paper – a modern addition that will be invisible from the outside but will ensure that the interior stays nice and dry.
Following the methodology we developed during the first stage of repairs, we’ll drill the tiles in the corner and re-fix them with copper nails. We’ll add bespoke lead ventilation tiles with mesh insets and some ventilation at the ridge cap, another innovation that will help to keep the building weathertight.
There have even been some developments in the way we replace the roofing lead – the original long runs will be replaced by shorter sections to allow for movement, following UK best practice for heritage buildings of this type.
While we’re injecting a little modern know-how, the vast majority of the work we’re doing would be very familiar to the original builders. It’s a privilege to work on a heritage building of this calibre with master craftsmen – and to see them passing their skills on to the next generation.
