|
 
Home
| Welcome
About the Church | Our Mission | Church News | Church Events | Music Programme
|
|
Visitors to the church can’t fail to notice that something is afoot. Access from the Witley Court frontage is barred and the tower is covered in scaffolding. THE CHURCH IS OPEN AS USUAL but for safety reasons we have had to redirect access to the west driveway only. While the scaffolding was being erected overhead we had to close the west (main) door for a while but normal access has now been made safe and reinstated. We apologise for any inconvenience to the less able during the short time that access was limited to the rather difficult rear entrance.
So, what’s going on? Well, we have been aware for some time that the cupola (the dome above the clock tower) was showing signs of distress. Old stonework was often reinforced with iron bars, much as we use reinforcing steel in concrete today, but which are more susceptible to attack from the elements. In our case the copper sheathing to the dome split, water started to find its way into the stonework, corroded the iron that then expanded and spalled, or burst off the face of the stone. Once fully exposed to the weather, the wetting and corrosion systematically destroys the surrounding stone if left unchecked. More important than the damage to an historic building, if allowed to deteriorate to the point where bits started to fall off we would have a serious health and safety risk to people on the ground. We cannot risk either of these so we are tackling this important restoration project now before things get any worse. Doing nothing is not an option. .
If this problem were at ground level it would be a relatively simple job to repair but at 35 metres in the air it becomes a real headache. The scaffolding alone takes two weeks to erect and costs £30,000 and if you have to spend that much on scaffolding it makes sense to do some other jobs while you are up there. We intend to repair the damaged stonework and of course we must replace the damaged copper sheathing on the dome to make it watertight and prevent further corrosion problems and we can give the structure some further resistance to corrosion by putting a small electrical charge into the bars – known as ‘Cathodic Protection’. The cross and orb which surmounts the dome is to be reguilded and the clock faces are to be to restored to their former glory, whilst inside the tower, the clock mechanism, currently restricted to a single face, will be reinstated on all three faces and given a mechanised winding system. (Winding by hand lasts just 5 days and involves a dangerous climb up the inside of the tower by an intrepid volunteer to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude) Finally we have an old broken bell, the installation of which has also damaged the stonework of the tower and we are going to replace that with a new, smaller bell, properly mounted.
|
|
© www.greatwitleychurch.org.uk
|
Great Witley Church 
