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Posts Tagged ‘buildings’

The Vicar’s Holiday

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 27 May, 2014| 1 Comment »

The Vicar planned to take a couple of days off this half term to hang out with the family. Today however, he has been talking to insurance people and building people about a little incident in church on Sunday. In the morning the early birds arrived to a bit of plaster dust on the floor of the chancel. We’d had a problem with ants in the roof last year, so we assumed it was the same thing, and the area where the plaster had landed was taped off. It seemed appropriate timing, since the Vicar and our PCC Health and Safety rep had only just attended a Health and Safety training event on Saturday.

Our Sunday services (10.30am & 6.30pm for us, 12.30am for the other church that shares our building, plus our 4.30pm SOUL course) all went along without a hitch. Then, as the final folk were milling around at the end of the evening service and the organist was playing a closing voluntary, there was a massive BANG. And plaster showered down over the chancel and into the nave. A huge chunk had broken off the decorative plasterwork in the ceiling and it dropped down, breaking into pieces and damaging lights and a microphone in its descent.

We are very thankful that the plaster disaster happened after everything had finished. If it had exploded when communion was happening on Sunday morning, there could easily have been injuries. As it is, the Vicar’s holiday has been a little disrupted, and there’s a bit of work ahead to sort out (and pay for) but otherwise we’re fine. Things falling off our church, inside and out, happens almost annually. We love our old building, but sometimes it gives us a bit of a fright. Who’d have thought they only made the plasterwork to last 173 years, eh?

The hazards of Victorian plasterwork

The hazards of Victorian plasterwork

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Soggy Church News

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 15 January, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Oh dear. The sump pump the Vicar thought he’d got working last night didn’t do the business. When he went into the basement to check this morning he found that the water was at the same depth. As he’s off on the diocesan clergy conference for a couple of days, a church member is going to look into what needs to be done. But the Vicar wanted the water to be out so the church member could quickly get on with the work. And he was worried about the boilers that are in the basement. Thankfully, the Vicar had a brainwave and dug out the pump that we normally use to empty the portable baptistry.

A bit of Heath Robinsoning later and the Vicar and BytheSea had popped the pump in the sump and the delivery hose into the churchyard. The Vicar then left for his conference and BytheSea has been cementing his ministry training by popping out regularly to ensure that the water isn’t running back down the basement steps.

This was the sight that greeted me as I went down to the school to help with Christian Club. And BytheSea has now reported that most of the water has gone. For now.

Unexpected Churchyard Water Feature

Unexpected churchyard water feature

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Leaky Vicarage, Soggy Church

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 14 January, 2014| 6 Comments »

Today the diocese sent some chaps round. Don’t worry, they’ve not discovered that I mistook the liturgical season for Christmas instead of Epiphany. We’re keeping that one quiet. The chaps came round after we reported the repeated leaks in our living room ceiling. They’ve known about them for ages actually. And sent chaps round before. The chaps sealed the window in the living room a few times. And then they sealed our bedroom window sill a few times too. And then we’ve had more weather (strong winds and heavy rain do it best) and the leaks have continued and the Vicar has worked out the path the water has been taking (under our bedroom window sill, down the inside of the wooden panelling above our window and then into the panel above the window in the living room).

The panelless living room ceiling

The panelless living room ceiling

The Vicar’s latest email to the diocese mentioning possible damp and rot elicited a rapid response team who arrived today. And they had to take the panelling down in the living room. It was rotten. And there are some patches of rot in the oak lintel above but they can be treated. And the window sill above is now covered in felt. They’re going to reinstate everything when the promised double glazing arrives next month and things have dried out.

And this evening the Vicar had to head to the church basement, where the boilers live. There, appropriately dressed in wellies and rubber gloves, he discovered that the sump pump intake was blocked with leaves and other debris. A trugful of slimy gunk later, he was able to start the pump again and hopefully tomorrow the basement will be free of water.

These have been minor irritations compared to what others have suffered in this recent damp spell, but I’ll be glad when the weather perks up a bit, I must say.

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Men up the Tower

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 18 May, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As I mentioned in my last post, this Sunday just gone some stone fell off our church tower, shattering on the paving slabs just in front of the main church doors. I’d thought it was plaster, but in fact the stuff that came off was sandstone. The sandstone has weathered and suffered the effects of pollution since the church was built in 1840 and the stone has started to crumble.

Today a team of workmen steeplejacks [late edit – forgot the word!] have been abseiling around the tower to check all the stone decorations and check that they’re safe. The original chunks that fell off came from a decorative arch over the church clock. When the men went to check the rest of that particular arch, large chunks crumbled off in their hands. So they have removed as much as they can from that side.

I spotted them just as they’d finished on the first side, and went back out with the camera as they were checking the next clock face. That decorative arch isn’t looking so crumbly, but you can see on the right hand side that the bottom of the arch has weathered quite badly (just near 3 o’clock).

Men up the tower

Rather them than me, especially in this drizzle

So we’re looking forward to being able to enter through the main church doors on Sunday. That news will be extra welcome to sheepish latecomers who were on full view last week. And then there’s the next step of replacing the stonework that’s been removed. I love our beautiful building but I must admit that sometimes I wish we met in a tin shed.

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Weekend Adventures at the Vicarage

Posted in Faith, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 16 May, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My head is still spinning a bit after this weekend. On Friday an old pal from our Cambridge church turned up on our doorstep wanting a bed for a few nights – he’s on a walking tour of the country. My parents also came to stay and Rocky’s fiancee stopped over Saturday and Sunday nights. So we’ve had a houseful.

So far, so fairly normal – we’re glad that we can accommodate plenty of folk and love to show hospitality. But then the Vicar and I were both busy on Saturday – he on a Bishop’s Quiet Day and I on a Food Hygiene training course. And I was teaching Junior Church on Sunday and obviously it’s a pretty busy day for the Vicar aswell. So that made our schedules seem extra packed. We were very grateful to the grandparents who entertained the Queen, the Joker and the Engineer to soft play and a Chinese buffet whilst the Vicar and I attended our Saturday events.

But besides all the busy-ness, we’ve had some bother with buildings. Firstly, two of the Vicarage windows now have stone holes in them – a small pane in the living room and an enormous pane in the kitchen. Unsupervised primary school age children have been playing a stone-throwing game in the church yard so we think the damage is accidental rather than malicious. Doesn’t stop it being very annoying, though. The kids have now been banned from the church yard until we can work out something with the parents so that games don’t get out of hand and result in the sort of trouble that happened this week. The Vicar’s long-term desire to raise funding for a Families and Community worker gets an extra impetus every time something like this occurs.

And the banning of kids from the church yard now seems like a very wise move indeed after the discovery on Sunday morning of a plaster rose from the church clock face, shattered on the floor by the front door of the church. So the front doors had to be cordoned off and the congregation had to come into church through the North door. That made it extra embarrassing for the latecomers, who came in in full sight of everyone else. Various people have suggested calling the new Bishop of Ebbsfleet to sort things out with the masonry. Failing that we’ll be getting the builders in to ensure that things are safe and noone has the sky falling on their heads on their way into church.

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