Repair to the Chancel Roof
Back in January, Oli King noticed from his vantage point on the organ loft that there appeared to be slight water damage to the plasterwork on the wall high up on the south side of the chancel. Investigation revealed that the copper on the chancel roof has reached the end of its life and it was holed or ripped in at least 20 places. The photograph on the right shows some of the areas of damage. When the roof was last inspected by our architect in 2017 he thought that the copper would last for only another 5 years or so. He was right but we didn’t expect the copper, which has been loose from the underlying roof timbers for some time, that is what makes the roaring noise in high winds, to fail quite so rapidly and extensively. The holes and rips were all quickly, but temporarily, repaired with roofing tape and we met with the church architect in early March to plan the replacement of the copper.
The architect’s advice is that we replace the copper with lead, which lasts longer than copper and is the metal that has been on the roof historically. Copper was installed in 1959 when all the roofs were repaired, there was a shortage of lead at that time. Lead was re-installed on the south aisle and south chapel roof when these were repaired in 2000.
The works will start in mid September, we are not allowed to start until the maternity roost of bats that take residence under the chancel roof each summer have left to go to their autumn and winter home elsewhere. The first thing which we will all notice is the temporary scaffolding roof that will be constructed over the chancel. This will take 3-4 weeks to build and access to the churchyard by car from Museum Street will be restricted during this period. We will ensure that everyone is given more details on this nearer to the time. The work will take approximately 16 weeks to complete and might just be finished by Christmas but even if it is not all of the work will be outside of the church.
We have made a lot of progress since January. The Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) have recommended approval of the work and the process to obtain the required Faculty is well underway. If you wish to see any of the documentation submitted to the DAC, you can do so here: https://facultyonline.churchofengland.org/FAS/ApplicationPublicNotice.aspx?Id=62153
UDC have been consulted as they can require a planning application for works that change the external character of the building and this will change because lead and copper are different colours. However, they have been persuaded that the chancel roof cannot be seen from the ground even from neighbouring high ground such as Windmill Hill to the north. Historic England have been consulted as required under the Faculty legislation and a new bat survey has been commissioned. Finally, the contract for the work has been awarded to Bakers of Danbury who carried out the work to install the servery and toilet at the back of the church in 2017 and 2018.
If you live in the town and are starting to wonder whether St Mary’s will come knocking to collect funds from you for a repair to the chancel roof, you need not be concerned. Following a review in 2010-11 ,which all parishes were required to carry out to decide whether they would continue to collect funds under the Chancel Repair Liability provisions, St Mary’s took the decision not to collect such funds in future and any legal right to do so ended on 13th October 2013.
If you have any questions about the works, please do not hesitate to ask me or the churchwardens. We will keep you updated through the Grapevine, the church website and a display in church.
Steve Hasler: 2nd July 2021