Capital Works (Roof Repair)

The external scaffold took 6 weeks to put up and covered the entire nave.
A similar internal scaffold, known as a ‘bird cage’ filled the inside of the church and was used to house the ‘machine shop’ at high level, so skilled carpenters and joiners could carry out the roof repairs.
The scaffolding weighed approximately 90 tonnes. A counter-weight of 180,000 litres of water in storage tanks known as ‘kentledge’  was installed to prevent the scaffold from blowing away in high winds!

Look closely and you can see the temporary machine shop on the right.

Roof coverings were removed to expose rotten timbers in the ridge beam, king posts, and rafters.

Installing a replacement ridge beam and rafters

Pipistrel and Brown Long Eared bats were found, active in the church or hibernating. This required careful ecological planning and mitigation, causing some delays to the repairs.

Timber decay due to infestation of Death Watch Beetle.

The timbers are mediaeval or possibly date from the 1791 roof restoration.

The lighter colouring on the right-hand image is from the timbers that have been repaired or replaced.  The left-hand image shows them before the works.

They were deliberately left in their natural colouration, which is considered more authentic.

Lime washing internally

Repointing external flint work of the south clerestory in lime mortar