What a week of British weather started on 28 March – ranging from warm and calm on Monday, through rain, drizzle, snow, sun, cold north east and strong north winds!
Harry and Oscar carried on fitting the chancel parapet cappings through the week. Shaun and Alex worked through the nave roof batten and ridge cappings, involving welding of the top of the batten joint cappings at the ridge, until finished.
Architect William Assheton carried out a site visit on Wednesday before going to the Weldon Stone workshops where the replacement nave parapet capping stones are being carved from Great Tew ironstone.
This was crunch week for major funding. Our grant from the Heritage Stimulus Fund through the National Churches Trust, was recently very generously uplifted to £70,000 to assist with the extra stone work that had been identified. The architect had to be able to certify that at least £70,000 of work had been carried out by the critical government funding date of Thursday, 31 March! We made it! We shall now receive 98% of the whole grant within two weeks.
Effectively the roof repair has been completed and after cleaning next week, the church will be open again for services, starting on Palm Sunday, and for visitors. The scaffolding will stay in place until the stonemasons have completed carving the new stone and installed it and the heritage downpipes are restored.
Work will still continue on smaller jobs on the top of the tower, porch roof, lower iron rainwater gutters and south aisle wall pointing.
GHP
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