Anglican Taonga - News for the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, NZ and Polynesia

Cranes poised to remove heritage items

Cranes are poised to remove stained-glass windows and other heritage items from ChristChurch Cathedral.

• Church insurer may favour cash payouts

Northern transept wall of ChristChurch Cathedral, photographed on March 26.

Taonga News | 26 Mar 2012 | 1 Comment

Two cranes are in place for the delicate task of removing stained-glass windows and other heritage items from ChristChurch Cathedral this week.

The structure is deemed too unsafe to use scaffolding.

This phase is expected to take two months, followed by lowering of the cathedral to around 3 metres.

Deconstruction should be complete by the end of the year, says the diocesan media officer, Fiona Summerfield.

Over 60,000 people farewelled the city’s landmark last weekend when CERA opened a walkway past the damaged building.

Brian Smith

Wednesday 28 March 2012 2:42:04 pm

I am so shocked and disappointed by the church over the decision to not rebuild the Cathedral. Frankly it is incomprehensible.

I understand the church would rather spend its insurance windfall on people rather than expensive stone masonry. But the church is ignoring the massive value of this building to the entire community of Canterbury. A value that goes far beyond its religious value alone. It defines our community, it is the single defining image of our billion dollar tourism industry, it should be the heart of the rebuild of our new city. It can be done safely and cheaply.

If the church truly cares about the community it would donate the site to the City and let the city. It is so greedy, so selfish, just so unbelievable that our church is doing what it's doing.