'Priceless' windows need fixing

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The Dunedin Railway Station is being loved to bits and its ''priceless'' stained glass windows will need to be removed for extensive repairs.

The matching pair of windows on the first floor inside the main station foyer are easily accessible to tourists and are showing signs of many accidents over the past 100 years.

Otago Stained Glass master glass painter Peter Mackenzie said he was recently asked by a glazing firm to study the condition of the windows and repair two panes that had been knocked out by visitors.

''Tourists actually fall into them, they do literally - they fall over or they turn around and bang packs into them,'' Mr Mackenzie said.

The windows had received shoddy repairs in the past, leaving mis-matched glass textures and colours and poor lead work, he said.

The weather had also damaged them, especially the windows on the harbour side of the building, which were in urgent need of repair.

One of the windows was badly bowed and panes of glass were cracked or missing.

The windows, which Mr Mackenzie considered to be ''priceless'', were probably made by London-trained Robert Henry Fraser, the best of the stained glass window makers in Dunedin at the beginning of last century.

The windows were completely exposed to visitors and the weather and after they were fixed they would need to be encased with armoured glass to protect them, Mr Mackenzie said.

In a report sent to the Dunedin City Council last week, he said it would take two full months to fix each window and the job would cost $36,400.

Removing the windows for restoration, reinstalling them and protecting them with armoured glass would be an extra cost.

Council city property manager Robert Clark said his staff had been made aware of the state of the windows about a week ago and they would be fixed.

''It is one of our prime properties and it is a significant heritage building and I would want it to be up to scratch so we need to have a look at it.''

There was a set budget for property maintenance but the railway station was very important to Dunedin and the council and would get priority, he said.

''I can assure you that any of our heritage buildings, we will make sure they are up to scratch because that is something that I believe is very important for the city,'' Mr Clark said.

Mr Mackenzie said Dunedin had the best collection of stained glass windows in New Zealand because of the wealth that existed in the city in the gold rush years.

He was concerned a lot of that work was being destroyed by the weather and by poor-quality restoration.

''I don't want to knock glaziers but there is a lot more subtlety in a stained glass window and your average punter can't do it.''

He said up until the 1980s there were several master glass painters available in Dunedin but most had now retired.