The former Chinese Joss House at its location in Maryport St, Lawrence, from where it will be moved tomorrow. Photo by Samuel White.

A historic house in Lawrence will be loaded on to the back of a truck and taken to its original location tomorrow morning.

The small joss house, or Chinese temple, in Maryport St, Lawrence, was once an integral part of a Chinese settlement outside the southern town.

The settlement was formed during the Otago gold rush after local Chinese were prohibited from living in Lawrence and were given a block of land on which to reside.

The land became a well-known Chinese settlement and small township.

The Lawrence Chinese Camp Charitable Trust bought the land in the 1990s and has been working to restore the village to its former glory.

Trust chairman Jim Ng said because the joss house was on Heritage New Zealand's list of category two historic places, there were certain restrictions about what could be done with the building.

''There's laws about transferring it or touching it,'' he said.

The trust had worked hard to obtain resource consents to transport the joss house back to its original location. It had been moved from the Chinese camp to Lawrence in 1947.

It will be loaded on to a Fulton Hogan truck with the help of a 20-tonne digger and transported a few kilometres to the former settlement.

Dr Ng said piles and foundations had been prepared for the house's return.

Lawrence-Tuapeka ward councillor Geoff Blackmore said the house was not very big ''by any means''.

The joss house was going to be put next to the former Chinese Empire Hotel.

The trust aimed to renovate the house and reconstruct other parts of the historic settlement.

The trust recently obtained funding from the Lawrence-Tuapeka Community Board for information kiosks to be installed at the Chinese site.

samuel.white@odt.co.nz