From issue: Summer 2002
East Coast Landmark Given New Legs
by Sheridan Gundry
Demolition was the likely future of Tolaga Bay'smuch-photographed
wharf five years ago as more and more of it crumbled into the sea.
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| Tolaga
Bay wharf. Picture: Sheridan Gundry |
Now, thanks to a group of East Coast people determined to save the 660-metre
ferro-concrete landmark, the wharf has a new life. The Save The Wharf
Charitable Trust has put Tolaga Bay on the tourist map, attracted donations
from all over the world and to date has raised more than $150,000. Mammoth
fund-raising efforts have included collection tins throughout the district
and a donation box at the wharf. For years a popular fishing place, the
iconic wharf is now one of the most popular tourist attractions on the
East Coast.
The rescue mission began in 1997 with support from the Gisborne District
Council, which provided engineering, resource consent and building permit
advice and made Lotteries Grants Board applications on the trust's behalf.The
Historic Places Trust's Tairawhiti branch supported the applications for
funding and added oversight, ensuring the technical details of the work
were followed in accordance with the ICOMOS New Zealand Charter for the
conservation of places of cultural heritage value.
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The
wharf's new concrete legs cast around the old columns.
Picture: Sheridan Gundry |
Believed to be the longest in the Southern Hemisphere, thewharf [a Category
II historic place] has been crumbling since it was built in the late 1920s.The
aggregate used in its construction consisted of beach gravel from Napier
and beach sand from Tolaga. Salts in the resulting concrete attacked the
reinforcing steel, which expanded and broke off the concrete.
Building of the wharf began in late 1924 at a cost of £60,331 but
it was not opened until November 22, 1929, enabling larger coastal vessels
to berth.
Even as the wharf opened, improved roading and motor vehicles began to
compete with coastal shipping. Ironically, the wharf contributed to its
own demise. Much of the incoming cargo consisted of materials for the
construction of the road through to Gisborne.
The Depression greatly reduced the port's cargo, which included mainly
maize, livestock and wool.The Second World War further reduced trade.
From the mid 1950s, the wharf played its part in bringing a public supply
of electricity to the coast with the unloading of three shipments of poles
and cross-arms direct from New South Wales.
With the piles' deterioration an increasing concern, vehicles were banned
from the wharf in 1977. It languished under successive local authorities
until the townspeople acted two decades later.
Repairs have been an engineering challenge with major problems arising
from the original construction techniques. The piles on shore were cast
in place while those in the sea were pre-cast and floated out, attached
to a big buoy, before being stood upright into drilled holes.
For reconstruction, the old crumbling concrete was removed, the exposed
steel reinforcing treated and new concrete cast around the old columns.
The well-tramped decking above is also being repaired.
Specialist consultant Barry Potter, of Meritec, says part of the challenge
was to secure the wharf temporarily so that it would not collapse during
repairs.
"It was a chance to try out different techniques, including traditional
boxing and formwork methods plus shotcrete, a dry concrete sprayed through
a large nozzle on to the pile once the degraded concrete had been broken
out and reinforced.And this work had to take place between tides."
The first phase of restoration saw 26 wharf piles and headstocks rebuilt
between August 2001 and April 2002 at a cost over three years of $363,816.
Funding came from various sources, notably Save The Wharf Trust's $156,897,
the Lotteries Grants Board, $145,857, the Gisborne District Council, $38,770
and the Tairawhiti branch of the Historic Places Trust, $11,000. Now a
$75,000 grant from Eastland Energy Community Trust has guaranteed a start
to the second phase.
Gisborne's J.N. Williams Trust has contributed $70,000 to the project
to date. Save The Wharf Charitable Trust chairman Bert Lee is delighted
with what has been achieved to date but is not breaking open the champagne
yet.
"With 90 or so pairs of piles out to the wider part of the wharf,
there's still a long way to go. It's been a big challenge and the deterioration
is increasing. The sooner we get the work completed the better.
"Money continues to come in through various trusts, the donation
boxes and oneoff donations. We have also received information from relatives
of the people involved in building the wharf and this has been given to
Gisborne's Tairawhiti Museum."
Historic Places Trust Tairawhiti branch chairman James Blackburne says
it is heartening to see the small community of Tolaga Bay leading such
a worthwhile project to restore the wharf.
"The wharf is a key feature of New Zealand's heritage and played
an integral part in the social and economic development of the East Coast."
Historic Places Trust area co-ordinator Gail Henry says the Trust has
provided a range of specialist support and advice, ranging from endorsement
of funding applications to technical heritage input on the proposed repairs.
"We are 100 per cent behind the Save the Wharf group. Without this
type of community passion, it is doubtful that this nationally important
heritage structure would have had a future," says Henry.
"The Tolaga Bay Save the Wharf trustees have remained undaunted
and shown an extremely responsible approach to managing the process of
stabilisation and repair."
Industrial historian Geoffrey Thornton, author of Cast In Concrete, says
the wharf should be retained for its symbolism of the decline and fall
of the dozens of small ports around New Zealand. "Without doubt,
it is the best such example in the history of our minor ports."
Sheridan Gundry is a Gisborne freelance writer and author of Historic
Journeys, East Coast Driving Tours, written for the Tairawhiti branch
of the Historic Places Trust.
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