But when all was ready, lifting the former Outram Town Board office over the buildings between it and the road went like clockwork.
The four-tonne weatherboard office stayed steady as a crane lifted it from its foundations behind the Outram community hall and deposited it on a truck ready for its journey to its new home at the Taieri Historical Park about 2km away.
Taieri Historical Society members and residents armed with cameras watched as another slice of the town's history was saved.
Outram, now part of the Dunedin City Council, had its own town board for 79 years and only two town clerks.
The first, John Grant, who held the position for 42 years, worked from an office at the back of his house.
The building moved yesterday was built at a cost of 75 in 1924 for the second town clerk, Arthur Stewart, who worked from it until the board was dissolved in 1961.
It was used for small meetings for many years and was given to the historical society by the city council last year.
The society had budgeted $10,000 to relocate the building, refurbish it inside and out and outfit the interior as a pioneer cottage display, past president Ray Beardsmore said yesterday.
A grant of $4200 from the Dunedin Heritage Fund would meet most of the relocation costs, Mr Beardsmore said.
It will be the sixth historic building at the park, joining the Outram courthouse and jail, a steam engine shed, a classroom from Outram and a church from Berwick.
