John Norris Remembers
The Renovation of St Mary's
Continued from Last Month:
This final adornment was made from stainless steel by Mackays to Mr
Bourne's design. The six sides gave the spire a sense of depth, and were
meant to provide extra stability by being welded with a fin at each corner.
After construction the forty foot long structure was still not stiff enough, so
it was opened up and braces installed internally, substantially increasing the
weight. The crown at the top is almost six feet in diameter, but as it is a
hundred feet up, it looks much smaller.
It arrived on site one misty November morning, with a team of strong men to carry it off the lorry up to the scaffolding. Martin Bell, then a young reporter for Look East was present with his camera-man to record the momentous event .for the evening news. In the meanwhile two scaffolding frames had been erected over the top of the tower so that after the fleche had arrived at the top it could be transferred between these new frames which had a rail track on their sides. The upward hoist was electric and it's rope fixed just above the point of balance of the fleche., this enabled it to be carried over the top wall and dropped onto the steel frame. After the event Martin came into our garden room for coffee. He told us that his feet were so cold that even the stone slabs of the floor seemed hot. to his frozen feet
It was just as well that a helicopter was not used, as the fleche was three inches too short. A secure weather joint had to be made at the bottom of the fleche and this required space to make it. After an hour or so it was lowered onto it's resting place where it is seen to-day
The repairs to the porch followed after a few months. The contractors gave a price of £250 to demolish the old tin roof, and clear the site. This seemed far too much, so Reg Webb and I had a go. It took a little over an hour ! Most of it was down hill so it was really a matter of clearing up. In the top of the south wall was a bottle with yellow paper inside, referring to a 'Fatal Wedding' and a child on the railway line. This all seemed to perhaps refer to a young pregnant girl, who had disposed of her illegitimate baby. The bottle was of the type with a marble in the neck, and came from Cook & Son's factory in Burwell. It is now in the vestry, with a note inside written by John Byrom, but the original yellow advert is not with the bottle, perhaps just as well; all very sad.
Another interesting job for me was to help the stone mason to cut the ashlars at the top of the buttress; the one on the south side of the porch. The newly quarried lime stone, 'Free Stone' is quite soft, and can easily be cut with a crosscut saw. After the mason had marked out the edges, and he had give me instructions to go carefully as there were no spares, I started sawing. It was so easy! In time with reaction from the carbon dioxide in the air these stones become extremely hard.
It is worth mentioning that under the porch roof. An area of the original clunch face has been left unaltered except that the pointing has been replaced. Two other interesting features of the softness of clunch, are the grooves cut by a bell rope over the door lintel, and the wear on the steps going up to the old ringing floor. How they managed to get up those steps for the last year or so safely to ring the bells is a mystery. On completion the Bishop was asked to rededicate the tower, but refused to do so until the final bill was paid. At the time two thousand pounds were owing, so I had a whip round of those with a bob or two, and raised the money by loans, repayable when we could. A year later fifty pounds each was in hand, but they all refused the cash and converted their loan into a gift. So in 1965 a service of dedication was held just before the Vicar retired. The churchwardens Mr Ken Taylor and Mr Betts also left the village at this time, as did Mr Gill the PCC secretary, so a new team was elected to welcome the new vicar, Rev Robin Ellis. He arrived with a young family, who found the old vicarage totally unsuitable for their needs A large damp building with poor facilities, and in need of repairs everywhere.. The house in Lower End where Mr Taylor lived was the vicarage until a new one was built next to the churchyard in Greenhead Road. several years later. The new wardens were Mrs Peggy Woollard, and John Norris . So many vicarages built in the eighteenth century were unsuited to modern needs so that they were sold for peanuts. The one in this village sold for six thousand pounds, together with six acres of land Some forty years later the cognoscente now occupy these buildings after expensive repairs; but their original grandeur still shines through and they are splendid homes. This was the end of a very busy year and a half, and those involved, and there were many, felt it was a job well done Some forty three years later, the tower is still presenting us with problems. In that the drains from the roof of the tower have become blocked up with pigeon droppings, and water is how running down the sides of the tower. This may seem a simple job to repair, but unseen from below, there is a complicated system of pipes which should transfer water to the ground if the outlets become blocked. But these are blocked too ! We do have an expert on hand who is fairly confident that he can restore order once again. During a sharp storm in the spring of 2007, the nave gutters could not cope with the heavy downpour, and water came over the top of the gutters and ran down the south wall spoiling the floor blocks. We were able to get rid of the water by brushing it down the hot air heating gratings where it soaked away through the old brickwork very well ! The trouble was caused by an accumulation of 'needles' blown onto the roof from the large Cedar tree nearby. This tree is far too close to the building; when it was planted in 1929. it was very small, but to-day it towers above the side-isle roof and causes trouble. I will now turn to what has happened inside the church during the past fifty years. Back in 1959, the heating was almost nil, it being provided by three calor paraffin stoves in the isle, the ones with an upturned bottle of fuel which gurgled. every five minutes or so. There was an old coal-fired hot air system with five gratings in the nave, but none in the chancel. which had not been used for years. I arranged for a farm hot air blower to be connected to the flues in the boiler house, and see what advantage we could get. It worked very well, although very noisy, but gave us hope that some better form of heating was available.
At this time the only way to approach the back of the churches was along the lane, now a grass track, leading to the High Street. Coopers Lane was constructed some thirty years later. A tank for the fuel was purchased, and placed near the gate, so that in the summer it would be filled by a tanker. This site involved a very long feed pipe to the cellar and the new boiler. We. took the opportunity of buying a much larger machine, with a silencer, and a long flue leading up to the original chimney. This heater has been in operation ever since, with several new parts and regular servicing, and is enjoyed by all.
The pews were the next job to be tackled, as they were painted black, and just as they were in St Cyriacs at the turn of the century. They do not fit well in St Mary's nave, as they are too long, being designed for the another church. They were taken one at a time to the hard standing at Anglesey House, given a thorough wash, and wiped over with paint remover. We were lucky that the coat of paint was very thin and came off easily. Marion was in charge of this work, and demanded a very high standard! Twenty four pews were done, and fitted in the church somehow. To-day four of them reside in St Cyriacs from whence they came. In those days the clerics officiated from inside the chancel, and the pews came nearer to the screen, fitting more in.
In 1979 the heating, although much better, could not cope with the cold blast coming from the tower. Several attempts at a curtain, or a polythene sheet was tried, and although successful was not appropriate. Both the vicar John Byrom and I had lost sons in road accidents, and we decided to offer a screen as a memorial to those boys. Mr Halliwell an architect living in Reach designed the present doors and the plaque on the south wall. Whilst this was going on John and Shirley Wilkins lost a son whilst going to school, so his name was added.
The screen is a great success, in spite of the spelling mistake of millennium. That word was not in common use until recently. Shortly after I retired in 1986 Marion and I sponsored new clere-story windows. The glass put in during the 1902 rebuilding is very soft, and the acid rain of the past eighty years has etched the surface, making them very dull. The new material is very hard Russian Greenhouse glass, and has made a huge difference to the lighting the building. At this time we also improved the candle sticks at the East End , by re-brassing them, and now they look splendid, especially the large ones which had been painted, black. The pulpit fell over with the schoolmaster inside during the Christmas rehearsals in 2000, so we arranged for a wide plinth to be added for safety in the future.
All in all we have been privileged to help in so many ways, and have been pleased to have been able to do so .
Eds Note: Very sadly, John's wife, Marion, who shared all these experiences with him, died a few days ago on March 16th. She will be greatly missed.