Conservation workers remove the false ceiling at Audrey House in Ranchi on Monday and (below) a statue of Birsa Munda awaits revamp. (Hardeep Singh)

History buffs rejoice.

After languishing in neglect for years, Ranchi’s grand old Audrey House is ready to raise a toast to new life with its restoration work, finally, beginning on Monday.

Conservation of the iconic 159-year-old edifice, standing opposite Raj Bhavan on Kanke Road, was waiting to happen since 2009. Bureaucratic hassles being the norm in this state, the project only hobbled and halted by turn.

Annoyed at the slo-mo progress, Raj Bhavan told off laggard babus, which prompted a hurried and hush-hush foundation-laying function on Republic Day this year. And, two months down the line, groundwork debuted renewing hopes the historical structure that was marked condemned by the building construction department two years ago.

Ricky Surie, who recently took charge as the new state convener of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) that is looking after the project, confirmed that a team of conservation experts visited the site on Sunday and implementation of restoration plans had begun.

On Monday morning, when The Telegraph team paid a visit to Audrey House, it saw a false ceiling being dismantled. Conservation architect of Intach Ritu Raj explained that they would first have to pull down all structures that were added in recent years and clean the whole building, a large section of which had remained locked for years.

According to the architect, the biggest challenge is restoration of termite-eaten wooden beams. “Besides, some portions have been damaged by unscientific constructions in recent times. By dismantling the false ceiling, we will be able to gauge the exact condition of the original roof. Careful cleaning also needs to be done. The whole exercise will take about a month or so,” he said.

Built in 1854 by Captain Hannyington — the deputy commissioner of Chotanagpur between 1850 and 1856 — the two-storey edifice functioned as an extension of the governor’s secretariat. In the not-so-distant past, when Ranchi was the summer capital of undivided Bihar, it served as the state secretariat. Raj Bhavan came into existence much later.

For years, Audrey House continued to remain vacant except for a small portion that housed the law commission’s office and a couple of other government departments. All rooms have been vacated now.

Surie maintained that they were trying to retain “as much originality as possible”.

“During the cleaning exercise today, officials came across maps and other documents. The person who built Audrey House had a daughter with mobility problems. So, there are ramps within the building. We are looking forward to finding more historical documents in order to conserve the building in the best possible way,” he said, adding that the second objective was to revive the place as a cultural hub.

Governor Syed Ahmed too has said that he wants to christen Audrey House as Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre. The 30,000sqft premises is expected to house a conference hall, a library, a documentation centre, an open-air theatre, a tribal centre to depict life and livelihood of indigenous people and an artefacts museum.

The total restoration-cum-renovation work is expected to take around eight months, provided there are no more bottlenecks, Intach officials said.

Will the Audrey House revamp be able to meet its deadline?

Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com