St Mary's Church Hinckley
Repair work to the church consisted of renewing decaying masonry within the church spire, repointing external stonework around the church and within the clock chamber in the towerand repairs to the cast iron guttering around the church.
St Mary's Church Leamington Spa
St Mary’s Church is a brick church with stucco facades. It was built between 1838-9 and is a Grade II Listed Building.
A large internal scaffolding was erected to gain access to the problems on and around the ceilings in both the Nave and the Galleried Aisles.
Due to various factors ie water penetration in the roof space, high humidity and high internal temperatures, some of the plaster features within the ceilings of the church were cracked.
Initially problem areas were opened up to allow inspection of the timber-work. This assisted with diagnosis and ensured the correct remedial repairs were carried out.
Defective plasterwork was removed prior to consolidation.
Finished spandrel.
Problems also resulted from laths being too close together and insufficient nibs.
Spandrel prior to rebuilding.
Poor workmanship carried out initially and with some historic repairs lead to localised failure of the plasterwork.
Rebuilt with fiberous plaster.
Virtually rebuilt.
A restored ceiling boss.
A conserved and painted ceiling ventilator.
An external scaffolding was erected to carry out repair works to the Tower and stairwell roofs.
The ceiling has now been totally conserved and the internal scaffolding removed.
St Laurence's Church Rowington, near Warwick
Various masonry repairs were carried out to the church. These included replacing decayed mullions, hood moulds and stones within a buttress. All stones were Grinshill White sandstone.
All Saint's Church Leamington Hastings
We were engaged to carry out various conservation repairs on the fabric of the church.
St Mary's Church, Bloxham Oxfordshire
Two Gargoyles and five decorative Chimera sculptures have been conserved on the South side of the church. Due to general wear and tear and structural problems with bedding planes the figures were inspected and each conserved using stainless steel pins, lime grouts, matching lime mortars and shelter coats.
Churchyard Cross. (Grade 1) Church of St James Somerton Oxfordshire
The medieval cross stands in the churchyard of the church at Somerton. It’s shaft stands approximately 1.5 metres high above a square base, comprising of a square 4-step marlstone plinth, the lowest step of which has a deep chamfered nosing. The head of the cross has almost indecipherable carvings on all 4 faces, and the top corners of the base are carved with heads.
The cross was dismantled some time ago as it appeared unstable and the iron cramps were exerting pressure on the stonework. The work involved carefully replacing the existing iron cramps with stainless steel. One section of one of the stones was in two pieces and this was dowelled together. The base stones were then rebedded and repointed with a lime based mortar.
The medieval cross dismantled; shows the top section with a new stainless steel dowel in place.
This section of the shaft was split in half and has now been dowelled back together with stainless steel pins and a hydraulic lime and now awaits a mortar repair to compete the process.
The top two sections of the cross are still dowelled together and show an original iron cramp protruding from the bottom section
The second stone now back in position.
The base stones had to removed and
rebedded on a lime mortar bed.
The old iron dowel is carefully removed by drilling out the lead
The stone is lifted up into position using a simple A frame scaffolding and a block and tackle
The top stone is back in position.
Apart from some repointing… the finished result.
Kings Sutton - Window repairs to The Church of St Peter's and St Paul's.
Seven windows are being conserved on the North Aisle, South Aisle and Chancel.
Work involved cleaning down, pinning and grouting cracked stonework, sheltercoating and painting the iron window grills.
Typical problem shown here. The window tracery is delaminating and requires pinning back to make sure the original stonework is conserved.
Dowels are kept as small as possible to ensure tension and stress to the stonework is kept to a minimum.
A premixed lime grout is injected into the prepared dowel hole prior to inserting the stainless steel dowel.
St Mary's Church, Bloxham Oxfordshire
The 200 year old Sun Dial lay at the bottom of the Southern Elevation of the Tower. It was taken down some years ago and was re-instated in its original position on the external wall against the bell chamber window.
The sun dial shown being lifted up in front of the Tower wall. A mechanical hoist was used to lift it.
The sun dial behind the scaffolding now fixed in its original postion in front of the Bell Tower window.
The sun dial has been refixed into its original position. It broke into two pieces when it fell and has been dowelled back together. It has been fixed back to the tower walls with stainless steel brackets.