Te Waimate Mission House at Waimate North is currently being re-roofed with wooden shingles. Photo / APN
New Zealand's second-oldest building has been temporarily closed to the public.
Te Waimate Mission, built in 1832 and now in the care of the Historic Places Trust, is being re-roofed with wooden shingles, which northern heritage destinations manager Natalie McCondach said would recapture some of its distinctive character and charm.
When the house was built it was roofed with kauri shingles. It was re-clad with corrugated iron in 2001 to keep it weathertight and to aid in its preservation. That roof had done its job, Ms McCondach said, but no system was perfect and in recent times parts of it had begun to leak. The solution was to reinstate the shingled roof.
"Because it's not practical or cost-effective to use kauri shingles we'll be re-roofing the building with western red cedar shingles," she added.
"Cedar has the advantage of fading back to a very similar colour to kauri shingles in a short period of time, and the shingles are more durable; we can expect at least 20 years of life out of them. We've had very good results using cedar shingles with the Stone Store at Kerikeri."
