TENDER ACCEPTED

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 258, 28 July 1934, Page 9

TENDER ACCEPTED

Alterations to Wellington Town Hall WORK TO START ON MONDAY The tender of Messrs. H. G. Field and Co., Ltd., builders and contractors, of Howells Street. Wellington South, has been accepted by the City Council for alterations to the Town Hall. The contract price is £5567. Six other tenders were received. It is understood that the tender of Messrs. H. G. Field and Co., which was the lowest, was appreciably under the next lowest. At a meeting two months ago the City Council placed the sum of £6OOO on the estimates to cover the cost of the work. . The job is to be completed within three months. A start will be made with the work on Monday. Already cart-loads of timber for scaffolding and chutes have been delivered at the Town Hall. As a great deal of care will have to be taken in lowering the masonry of the tower, wooden chutes will be used to convey the brickwork to tire ground level.' The task involves the. total demolition of the clock tower, the main por tico in Cuba Street, the pediment over the Wakefield Street entrance, and the parapet which surrounds three sides of the building. Then, in the same job. the building has to be provided uith a roof to cover the square of the removed tower: a new and smaller (and lower) portico is to be erected over the main entrance in Cuba Street: and on the Wakefield Street side the roof has to be brought forward to cover the area at present occupied bv the heavy pediment. The work entails the breaking up of the strongly-sculptured allegorical groups on the front of the Cuba and Wakefield Street pediments. These were executed by Mr. J. Herdman Smith, when he was teacher of sculpture and modelling at the Wellington Technical College.