StAC: Our Earthquake Story | Strowan House Stories

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Welcome Home More than 150 guests and all the students from Years 8 -13 gathered in the quad to celebrate the official re-opening of Strowan House more than two years after it was closed by earthquake damage.

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Students gathered in the quad to join in the celebrations that marked the re-opening of Strowan House.

The 120 year old homestead underwent an extensive $6.5 million restoration that has restored it to its original glory. Strowan has been seismically strengthened and the opportunity was also taken to future proof the administrative heart of the College by upgrading the building’s technology systems.

In spite of the freezing conditions that marked the re-opening celebrations, people were warmed by the beautiful rendition of “Flower of Scotland” sung by Frances Campbell and Harry Grigg and accompanied by Isaac Shatford. A poignant moment was Rector Christine Leighton reading a poem dedicated to Strowan House, written by our Writer in Residence, Kerrin Sharpe.

Head Boy Oliver Barron and Head Girl Annie Stevenson help Mrs Jan Hampton – RETIRED curator of the College Museum, Mr Brian Moore (OC 1940) and Mr Alan Beanland (OC 1940) cut the ribbon to officially open Strowan House.

Mrs Leighton and Chairman of the Board Mr Garry Moore spoke about the importance of Strowan House to St Andrew’s heritage before previous Chaplain Hamish Galloway blessed the building. Mr Brian Moore (OC 1940) and Mr Alan Beanland (OC 1940) and Mrs Jan Hampton – curator of the College Museum for 23 years – cut the ribbon to officially open Strowan. Guests enjoyed a tour through Strowan House, and morning tea, and students enjoyed a sweet treat as well.

Watch a video of the ceremony and listen to Kerrin’s poem at stac.school.nz

Architect Alun Wilke unveils the plaque to declare Strowan House officially open.

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Staff Celebrate Strowan Return

It’s been a long two years for many staff who have been tucked away in all corners of the College campus.

So what better way to celebrate the opening of Strowan House than with glitz and glamour. Teachers Cameron Pickering and Jacqueline Yoder, with the help of a talented team of staff members, set about planning an appropriately festive event complete with bubbles, ball gowns and live band. Michelle Lawrence even recreated a Victorian-era look within the staffroom, complete with interactive art installations. “It was the perfect way to honour the building’s beautiful restoration and mark an end to a long upheaval,” says Jacqueline.

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The evening exceeded all expectations and it was wonderful to see such a wide turnout of staff from all areas of the College. The finely attired staff were greeted at the door by Brent Cummack in full livery and photos were taken on the iconic wooden staircase of Strowan.

Ball attendees were serenaded by a string quartet and later on the Vague-as Brothers band got everyone on the dance floor. “We all concluded at the end of the night that the evening was a more than fitting tribute to our 'Grand Old Dame',” says Cameron.

StAC Family Gather to Mark Occasion

Photo credit: Meredith Clare Photography

Major supporters of the College gathered on Saturday 10 August to celebrate the re-opening of Strowan House.

It was an opportunity for community members to hear about the strong progress the College has made since the earthquakes and to celebrate a return to Strowan House after two years of restoration. Guests enjoyed

meeting with staff and students present at the evening as well as a very special dinner provided by the College’s catering team. Thank you to the following companies who generously contributed to the event: Giesen Wines, Charles Wiffen Wines, No. 1 Family Estate, A Grand Affair, Black Quail Estate and Flowers Bazaar.

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Fundraising has Just Got Delicious!

The College community will be able to enjoy a taste of StAC for years to come, and at the same time help raise much needed funds for the Centennial Chapel, with a new cookbook to be released at the end of 2013.

Recipes from the Tartan Kitchen will be available just in time to be the perfect Christmas present for family, friends and business associates. The book is not just a collection of recipes, but also a wonderful photographic memoir of special events held at the College. Registrar Julie Raateland, Cookbook Coordinator, says the book was made possible thanks to a huge team effort.

“Advertising and design agency, Novo, has created a book that will reflect the spirit of St Andrew’s College and that is beautiful enough to be able to grace a coffee table as well as a kitchen shelf. Photographer Stephen Goodenough attended many school functions and events and captured images that reflect what we love about this place,” she says. StAC parent and food stylist Amanda Cooper-Davies helped with the food styling for the photographs, while Jo Highet, Justine Rutledge, Therese Bierwirth and Bronwyn Dewar have done a brilliant job as part of the foodie team.

There are over 180 recipes in the book that have been sent in by members of the St Andrew’s community and many have been taste tested with measurements standardised and converted to metric. “There’s something that will appeal to all taste buds,” says Julie. “We’ve got everything from a power smoothie to start your day to a pavlova stack to end it. Probably the most unusual recipe though is for a vegetarian haggis.”

Look out for the cookbook order form in the next Regulus or visit stac.school.nz to download one.

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A restored, refurbished and resilient Strowan House is once more the hub of St Andrew’s life.

Strong, Resilient and Ready for the Future No matter how much time passes or how the College grows and changes, there is one symbol that remains the same, Strowan House. The old homestead, now the administrative centre of the College, remains proudly at the hub of the campus, much as it did when the school was founded 96 years ago. Initially built as a small farmhouse in the mid-19th century, Strowan was purchased by businessman George Stead in 1890.

He then commissioned a number of refurbishments to accommodate his growing status in the fledging Canterbury settlement. When the College founders bought the house in 1917, it was large enough to house the boarders, the Rector and various Masters of the new school.

The earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 caused extensive damage to the building, largely through the collapse of the seven large brick chimneys. As a result Strowan House needed wide-ranging work to bring the homestead up to today’s engineering and safety standards. Strowan House was inaccessible for 18 months while these renovations and repairs took place.

The refurbishment has been extensive. Most of the original lath and plaster walls were removed and replaced with braced plywood. This was then covered with plaster board. The rich plaster cornices and ceiling roses that were so badly damaged have been completely replicated.

Where Strowan faces onto the quad, one of the brick chimneys has been rebuilt as a lightweight replica.

The original bricks were removed and cut down to 20-millimetre slices that were then glued onto a fiberglass core.

Glazier Graham Stewart carefully restored all the stained glass windows, while all the wooden fireplace fronts were reinstated. The biggest job, however, was underneath the house where the foundations needed extensive work. Bushnell Builders had to hand-excavate more than 200 metres of new foundations. They had to shovel soil, spadeful-by-gruelling-spadeful, through the floor joists. Not an enviable job – especially considering it was done in the middle of winter. While it is sad that much of the original heritage components of the building have been replaced with replicas, Strowan House remains an extremely significant building and there is no question of its sentimental or heritage value.

Great efforts were made to retain as many of the original features as possible, such as the beautiful stained glass windows.

There was a silver lining to the drama of the refurbishment. The restoration gave the College the chance to install sprinklers, lay data cabling and upgrade its technology systems. Two years on from the earthquakes, the seismic strengthening and repair work done on Strowan House has not only made the building more resilient, but also restored it to its original glory.

The College administration, staffroom and some staff offices will again be housed in Strowan from the beginning of Term 2. “It will be wonderful to breathe renewed life into this magnificent homestead,” says Rector Christine Leighton. “We have missed being together and are really excited about being able to enjoy such beautiful surroundings again and ones that remind us all of our history and tradition.”

Slices of THE ORIGINAL brick stuck to a fibreglass core have ensured the remaining chimney is lightweight and safe.

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Canterbury Earthquake, 4 September 2010

Looking After Our Own...

An event like the September 4 earthquake brings into sharp focus the enormous duty of care the College has for its students and their families. While our pastoral care systems are in place all the time to ensure members of our community feel as comfortable, confident and happy as possible, when crisis strikes, those systems take on an entirely new dimension.

“After the earthquake it became very clear to us how responses to traumatic events vary greatly from person to person,” says Rector Christine Leighton. “We realised that, once the College re-opened, our pastoral care teams would have to be alert to the possibility of a very wide range of anxiety symptoms – particularly among those members of our community who had suffered significant physical loss.”

On the first day back at school, the strategy for administering pastoral care began at classroom and tutor group level. Students feel most comfortable and “connected” in their Preparatory School classes or

Secondary School tutor groups, so it made sense for sessions to be scheduled in which experiences could be shared, concerns aired and questions asked.

“Those initial classroom and tutor group sessions proved very reassuring for most of our students,” says Christine Leighton. “A good talk amongst friends, guided by tutors and classroom teachers, helped to release a lot of pent up anxiety. I was extremely impressed with the way our students coped during those early days.”

As the days and weeks passed by and the region continued to be pummelled by clusters of aftershocks, teachers, tutors, Deans, Heads and chaplaincy staff remained on high alert for students showing signs of distress.

“The earthquake was a test of our crisis management and pastoral care systems that, obviously, none of us expected to face. We are delighted that those systems served their purpose extremely well and that our students were able to settle quickly back into their studies and their busy lives.”

LEFT AND ABOVE: mainzeal workmen were on site soon after the earthquake to attend to safety issues.

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Then and now – Strowan House as it was nearly 90 years ago and last month (seen on the opposite page) when heavy works machinery was needed inside the building for restoration work.

Echoes of the Past To see Strowan House swaddled in scaffolding, you might feel sorry for the grand lady of St Andrew’s College, but this isn’t the first time she has suffered the indignity of such massive restoration.

In 1890 the original Strowan, which was the home of George Stead, a prominent businessman of the time, underwent extensive renovations after Frederick Strouts received instructions from Stead to create a grander residence to suit his improving status.

Instead of demolishing the house and starting again, Strouts incorporated a new building into the existing one creating a T-shaped structure. Strowan started out as simple weatherboard home with wide verandahs and a steep shingled roof with dormer windows. By the time Strouts had added some Colonial Gothic features, gables end on and the so-called Mansard Tower, a design fashionable during the reign of Napoleon III, Strowan became one of the great pioneer homesteads in Christchurch.

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Strowan, which is a contraction of St Rowan, a courageous and learned 7th century Scottish scholar, has always been a grand house with impressive rooms and sense of being rugged and romantic. It was probably the last important work by Strout. The St Andrew’s College Board bought Strowan in 1917 as the home for the new school and since then Strowan House has remained at the heart of the College. It’s very important in the memories of Old Collegians and is the public face of today’s school.

In 1917 however, a great deal had to be done to turn the grand homestead into a school that needed 20 rooms for staff and boarders’ accommodation and classrooms.

Especially as the next year in 1918 there 72 enrolments of which 47 were new pupils and the number of boarders increased from five to 17. It’s interesting to note that a young assistant at the time wrote a verse at the beginning of the school year in 1918 that was a parody of Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade that rings uncannily true of Strowan House 94 years later. This is what he wrote:

It’s not every day earth-moving machinery is seen inside Strowan.

“Workmen to the right of us, Workmen to the left of us, Workmen behind us; Hammered and blundered On the opening day, See how the tradesmen stay, Nothing could shift them!”

They could easily be the words of 2012! The work currently underway on Strowan House following the earthquakes includes repairs, strengthening and restoration.

New foundations are currently being put in place and the building is being re-levelled. Strengthening of all the internal walls is being completed and the majority of lath and plaster, which was badly damaged, has been removed and replaced with plywood then covered with Gib board.

The chimneys, many of which collapsed, have been removed and some will be replaced with a lightweight structure for aesthetic purposes.

General Manager David Evans says that the work is expected to take 12 months and when complete, Strowan will be a fully restored, strong building ready to face whatever the next 95 years hold for it.

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