TEAM Tuesday
We are fortunate at St. Illtud's Church to have a dedicated bunch of volunteers who undertake all sorts of work to help keep the church grounds in tip top order.
This team, or the "Church Working Party" attend most Tuesdays, and have done so since 2003!
The Three Musketeers
Rarely does such a strong team of individual experts come together to create such an effervescent force for good!
On a more serious note, Gareth, Errol and David have worked tirelessly to raise significant funds and bring together Church in Wales governing bodies, local authority departments, specialist architects, voluntary grant providers and builders, naming but a few, to ensure our Parish Church returns to its resplendent best and is safe for all visitors.
Their greatest feet to date has been the much anticipated restoration of the Church Tower - read below for more details. But now that this daunting task has been completed, and there being no rest for the wicked, the tireless trio are moving onto Phase 2 of restoration activities. Focussing on redecoration, new lighting throughout, roof checks and tile replacement, new carpeting in the chancel and a full electrics check this work hopes to be complete this year.
The Church Tower
Our beloved and iconic Church Tower dates back to 1636, and over the years had required various maintenance activities. Unfortunately, as time would tell, some of this historical maintenance was not completed to the best possible quality.
What was wrong?
Although previous maintenance was completed with the best possible of intentions, time and weather had taken their toll, causing the cladding used to protect the building's stone work to crumble and fall away. This had three impacts:
- Permitted water to enter the fabric of the tower and adjoining nave causing additional damage to internal woodwork, stonework, paintwork and the church organ's pipework.
- Looked unsightly!
- The most concerning impact was one of the safety to our parishioners and visitors to the church. Although some cladding has already fallen away, it was absolutely possible that, with time, more cladding could have fallen away.
Before restoration work started, the tower was causing a real safety issue for those standing below
What did we do about it?
Conducting maintenance to a historical building unfortunately takes time. This is in part due to the number of stakeholders involved, careful investigations of the work required and planning to undertake the work. However, by far the most time consuming element was raising the funds required to undertake the work.
The work we needed to undertake was extremely costly. Since 2017, we had worked tirelessly with an incredibly supportive group of people: our architects, parishioners and of course the Church in Wales amongst others. The work we required to undertake is summarised by:
- Safe removal of the cladding, taking care to protect Nave roof to the eastern face of the Tower.
- Repair the stonework to receive the correct lime based cladding on all faces of the Tower.
- Repaint the cladding in the original white colour with suitable approved paint in line with the Architects recommendation.
- Ensure the interior tower wood work is correctly replaced and the stonework around it is sound and properly engaged with supporting stonework and other wood supports.
- Strip the entrance porch at the base of the Tower of paint and allow the stonework to dry properly. Clean and remove all debris from the tower and the entrance porch. Repaint the entrance porch replacing notice boards etc.
- Ensure that the two bells in the tower are undisturbed by the works.
- Check the electrical points sited in the Tower entrance hall are correctly reattached and electrically safe. Replace the existing notice boards or renew as existing if damaged by removal.
- Renovate and re-varnish the exterior main door to the Church.
Thankfully, the work is now complete. It has been an incredibly long and frustrating journey from start to finish. But all that effort has paid off - all our thanks and prayers goes to the Three Musketeers, without whom the restoration of the Church Tower would not have been possible!
Completed in 2020, the tower looks fantastic and will be safe for years to come