Woolshed that stood for 100 years on Maraekakaho Rd shifted to new Haumoana home

It was there one day, where it had been for about a century, and gone the next day.

But gone to a "new life" as Mike Walmsley, who had the great red timber and silver corrugated iron roofed wool shed on his Longlands Rd property, put it.

The grand old shed, which had lived near the intersection of Maraekakaho Rd and Longlands Rd, had become something of a rural landmark and had plenty of history behind it, although Walmsley was not sure just how old it was.

"All I know is that it goes back a long, long time," he said.

He was chatting to an old friend who has property at Haumoana about it and it came up in conversation.

It was of no use to Walmsley so that was that.

"He wanted it so I'm giving it to him."

Walmsley, who runs a heavy contracting and demolition business, said he had a strong philosophy of recycling and sustainability so there was no question the old wool shed would be passed on and saved.

"Ensuring it has a new life is very much my philosophy."

So the call was made to Britton Housemovers operations manager Elwyn Fryer and for a building removal company which has been doing the business since 1957 and carried out thousands of major shifts, the answer was "no problem".

Although as Fryer said, there were several months of planning and preliminary work to be carried out, which came to fruition this week.

The still sound and solid old wool shed needed to have its roof carefully detached and craned off, and the building itself was detached and raised from its pilings and cleaved down the middle into two pieces.

On Monday two large heavy transporters were manoeuvred under the two pieces, extended their telescopic trailers, and took the weight.

About a dozen crew were at the site for the shift of a slice of rural, shearing history.
On the weathered timber walls were chalked and stencilled names of those who worked in the woolshed through the years.

Fryer had the same sustainable stance as Walmsley.

"It's great to see this because recycling is so important."

He said people travelling the Hawke's Bay Expressway which passed the Maraekakaho and Longlands Rd intersection would have got used to seeing the old "red roof shed" as it had long been part of the landscape and would now realise something was missing.

"It's been there longer than anyone can remember."

But as Fryer said "it's gone to another good home".

With the pieces of shed some 8.3m wide and just over 6m high, it created a few challenges, although Britton had brought in transportation escort vehicles and to ensure as little disruption to other traffic as possible, scheduled the move for a night-time start.

On the weight front the advantage was that the two large slabs of weathered old woolshed were much lighter than a house.

It would likely take about four hours to re-settle the shed on the Haumoana site.

"By Friday it'll be all back together," Fryer said.