Empty wharf loses mural

Press, 8 May 1978, Page 34

Empty wharf loses mural

Lyttelton’s treasured piece of graphic art is crumbling I away and the Lyttelton Harbour Board has decided to put it in storage. Few people now see the feature window at the end of the empty ferry terminal on No. 2 wharf. But it is suffering from salty air and phosphate dust from an adjacent bulk-load-ing berth and the mural, featuring the Canterbury pilgrims wending their way over the Bridle Path, is deteriorating badly. The board’s chief engineer (Nir J. B. Bushell) said the window’s maker, Hampton Studios, Ltd, could give no firm quotation for its repair, but it could be expensive. He suggested that, since there was no plan for the

building’s immediate use, the panels be removed and stored to prevent further deterioration and the window be boarded up. The Lyttelton Harbour Board agreed to this suggestion. The technique used in making the window was no longer in use because of extremely high labour costs and tbe unavailability of the necessary pigments. Other windows of the same type had also experienced deterioration, Mr Bushell said, as pigments tended to break down and become flaky or powdery. The technique relies simply on adhesion between colour and glass and is not fire-bonded.