Stonework and Glazing Project

It was a cold morning in early March, but fortunately there was very little wind when a determined group met at the bottom of the church tower, planning to make it all the way to the top.

This was not just an adventure, however, but an informative tour led by chief mason Jack Dunn who has been heading up our whole Project.

We saw new stone that had already been fitted.

Jack also explained some of the problems encountered, such as how to fill in the gap in the stonework behind the scaffolding pole in the picture above, but also how some of the old stone had deteriorated over the years due to older building techniques.

Notice how the stone has cracked on the right and even crumbled away at the corner. The explanations were fascinating, including the problem of water entering minute cracks and making small faults worse.

As with the stonework around the windows, odd bits of brick had been used to pad out the stone.

Of course, we continue to blend the new stone with sound old stone to the point of clearing out a hole and cleaning a small piece of stone before re-inserting it into the wall.

And, yes, we all made it to the top.

At the top we saw the problems with the pinnacles where iron had been used to join the sections of the pinnacles. The joints will be replaced with stainless steel as the pinnacles are put back together again.

And the views were amazing.

Next week should see all the windows re-installed, so do take a look in church towards the end of the week or, after the scaffolding has gone, in the following week.

Brian Abraham