Christ Church Cathedral to open for more visitors
Saturday, 1 March 2025
The Christ Church Cathedral might be boarded up and the workers gone, but there are plans afoot to host more events inside it and open it up to more visitors.
The news comes as The Press gets an exclusive look inside the warehouse where parts of the cathedral are stored.
There are thousands of pieces of stone, each individually labelled so they can one day be returned to the exact same spot. There are doors, organ pipes, bells, the restored rose window and solid totara trusses that once held the cathedral up.
The doors are standing upright encased in solidly built frames, so they do not warp and the trusses have been reassembled and bolted to the ground to prevent them from buckling.
The pieces were taken from the cathedral over the past three years as it was deconstructed.
In late August, Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Limited (CCRL), the charitable company managing the rebuild, decided to pause the cathedral rebuild project indefinitely after the Government turned down a request for more taxpayer money.
CCRL had an $85 million funding shortfall to meet the forecast earthquake-repair and restoration cost of between $209m and $219m.
The site has since been mothballed, with the scaffolding taken away and a 4-tonne temporary roof installed to ensure the building is weather tight.
CCRL project director Carolyne Grant said she wanted to share the cathedral with as many people as possible.
The cathedral has been granted a certificate of public use for 2025 by the Christchurch City Council, which allows it to open to 50 visitors at a time.
It must adhere to a strict Health and Safety Management Plan, which involves wearing personal protective equipment.
More than 2500 people visited the cathedral late last year during a series of tours.
“We want to get as many people behind the fences as possible because it’s everyone’s cathedral.”
Grant said she planned to target cruise ship passengers and business travellers in the city for conferences.
It was one way for the project to make money.
The first event on the calendar is a preview of Ghostcat’s exhibition, Ghosts on Every Corner.
On March 21, Mike Beer, who goes by the name of Ghostcat, will display his intricate scratch-built miniature models of pre-quake Christchurch buildings, inside the cathedral. The event has already sold out.
The exhibition will then move to the Arts Centre, where it will be for six weeks.
Grant also plans to light the cathedral in red for Anzac Day.
“We’re trying to make it as beautiful as possible.”
Grant said CCRL was also open to moving the fence slightly closer to the cathedral and was waiting for the council to present it with a proposal.
CCRL is occupying about 1500m² of public Cathedral Square land. It was leased to the church by the council for $1 a year during restoration.
Grant insisted the project was not mothballed, it was paused, she said, because they were still fundraising and trying to find a solution.
An application has been submitted to Lotteries for funding to pay for stained glass restoration.
Grant would not disclose how much the warehouse was costing, due to commercial sensitivity, but said CCRL had enough money to pay for it, emphasising it was a going concern.
But she would not say how long it could afford to keep paying for the storage.
Heritage professional Jenny May has spent many hours in the warehouse over the last three years making sure the items inside are well cared for and not deteriorating.
As the pieces came out of the cathedral May helped clean the dust and pigeon poo off them, using approved techniques.
May said when it came time to put the cathedral back together, the pieces would still be in excellent condition.
“It’s really important to tell people and show them how carefully and professionally these have been cared for.”
May said she found being in the warehouse slightly overwhelming.
She spent months after the earthquake going through the rubble to find pieces of the rose window, which came down in the June 2011 quake.
The pieces will last a long time in storage, indefinitely even, provided they continue to be well-looked after.