Magazine Article – Napier Office Inspires Family Chapel Restoration

Napier Office Inspires Family Chapel Restoration

To most people the Ministry of Works and Development means road works, heavy earthmoving machinery and “stop” and “go” signs disrupting traffic.

While those are certainly the “bread and butter” responsibilities of the Ministry, some members of its staff, when time allows, are involved in restoring and keeping records of other than the district’s highways and by-ways.

The nerve-centre for this work in Hawkes Bay is the Ministry’s architectural division in general and the district architect, Mr Barry Marshall, in particular.

Through the division’s concern to preserve some of the district’s old and unique buildings dossiers are being kept of buildings now beyond repair and other which are “at risk’.

But one such relic of the past has been saved and restored through the generosity of the present owner and the help and supervision of the Ministry’s staff.

The building is the Williams family chapel at Mangakuri, near Elsthorpe, in Central Hawkes Bay, which was built in 1887 in paddocks adjoining the coastal homestead.

Nests

As recently as last year, this link with the pioneer past of almost a century ago, had deteriorated into a nesting place for mynah birds and nocturnal creatures and inhabited by swarms of bees.

Its decaying timbers were rotting and moss covered; corrugated iron patched gaping holes in the wooden shingle roof and weeds grew almost into the central aisle.

The Historic Places Trust was interested in the chapel which is believed to be one of the few, if not the only privately owned chapel existing in the North Island.

But interest alone did not provide the finance necessary for the building’s restoration.

With the death-knell tolling for the building, the Ministry of Works and Development’s Napier office realised a record of the chapel’s architecture and design should be preserved.

So, to keep the chapel “alive”, at least on paper, students working at the Napier architectural office during their 1979 summer vacations from Massey University measured the building and prepared plans of its construction.

For a while it was thought this would be the only record of the crumbling chapel until Mr Pat Williams, a descendant of Archdeacon Samuel Williams who had the chapel built, said he was prepared to meet the costs of restoration.

The work was put out to tender and the Waipukurau construction Company was successful in obtaining the contract for almost total restoration work estimated to cost about $40,000.

Using documents and plans drawn by the Ministry and under the Ministry’s supervision, the task began – at ground level.

To give the restoration work a firm footing, the almost century old totara piles were removed and replaced with concrete. Weatherboards were replaced and the roof was almost totally renewed.

Ornate

Retaining the character of the old chapel meant using shingles for the roof and copying the ornate fascia boards. Attention was paid also to getting correct colour matching with old and new timber.

For the first time in its life the chapel was wired for electricity.

Using the one remaining timber cross as a pattern the builders were able to complete each gable ridge with a replica.

the restoration included the reglazing of windows in matching glass, sanding down the chapel floor and revarnishing the whole interior.

Brass rails were cleaned, polished and re-fitted; new window cords were installed after the antique pulleys had been checked and oiled and new carpet was laid in the aisle.

Even the original iron lock on the chapel’s main doors was saved.

“A locksmith in Napier rummaged through some of his old stock and, believe it or not there was a real old antique key which actually turned the locking mechanism at the chapel,” Mr Barry Marshall said.

Outside, guttering was used to take away stormwater; cobblestone paths were laid to the chapel entrance and to the bell tower and new timber gates were fashioned using the remains of the original one as a pattern.

On 10 January 1982, the minds of many attending the baptism and dedication of renewal services in the chapel, turned their minds back nearly 100 years to the time when their ancestors and those of the present Williams family landed in Hawkes Bay and the 21,000 acre Mangakuri Station was purchased from another pioneer, Colonel A. H. Russell for less than $5 an acre.

Family records show Archdeacon Williams was unhappy about his staff not being able to attend Sunday worship, so the chapel was built.

Services continued

Although before its restoration the chapel had deteriorated pitifully it had never [been] deconsecrated. Services had been held regularly in summer months often attended by holiday-makers at Mangakuri or nearby Kairakau Beach.

The Ministry of Works and Development has been unable to inspire total restoration of other buildings at risk in Hawkes Bay but it has been able to record in detail the floorplans and construction of other historic places including churches, commercial buildings, stables, and pioneer homesteads.

Photo captions –

The elements of almost a century finally took their toll on the privately owned Williams chapel.

The chapel today belies its age after the $40,000 restoration programme funded by Mr Pat Williams.

Mary Hollywood.
“The Daily Telegraph”, Napier.

WORKS NEWS – 19