Church Re-location and Restoration

Summary:

A complete restoration and re-location of a former Church of England that was originally built in the 1800′s.

Location:

Lower Plenty, Victoria

Project Details:

A40 were initially contacted in mid 2012 to assist with the removal of the church to a new site approx. 8kms away.  In order to make the move possible the entire roof needed to be removed  as well as a front porch, alter and side room. Within the church, the ceiling was lined with Baltic pine lining boards which were all original as well as decorative mouldings and scotias.  It was agreed by all involved that we must retain the original ceiling as replacing the original timbers would lose so much character of the building.  It was not only a fairly large job in itself but complex due to the nature in which we needed to dismantle and reassemble the entire roof and adjoining rooms.

To complete the dismantling of the roof we needed to erect scaffold internally to gain access to the ceiling and remove each moulding and lining board one by one.  Each piece needed to be numbered and packed in order to enable us to reassemble at the new site. This was painstakingly done to the entire ceiling, tin roof and flashings and all roof rafters, weatherboards, wall studs and even the flooring, joists and bearers from the dismantled porch, alter and side room.  This process took just over a week then we braced the 4 walls of the church to engineer specifications and weatherproofed it to ready it for removal and transportation to its new site.

At the new site we simply carried out the dismantling process in reverse and reassembled the church to its former glory plus a few improvements such as reinstating an original window and insulating the entire structure.  New electrical’s, air conditioning, painting and surrounding landscaping have completed the project and given a new life to an historical building which would otherwise have been demolished to make way for a new development.  It was a pleasure to be involved with such a positive project and assist in retaining such a unique building.