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Posts Tagged ‘damage’

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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