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Head for heights needed as steeplejacks examine spire at Cambridge church




A Roman Catholic church on Hills Road in Cambridge received a couple of visitors last week with a very good head for heights.

The steeplejacks came from WallWalkers, a building restoration service based in Bristol. Sam Milford, the owner, said his two staff members – one of whom was his dad, Chris, who founded the company with a friend in 1988 – were looking for signs of loose masonry in the tower of Our Lady of The Assumption and The English Martyrs Church, which was built between 1887 and 1890.

Checking for damage from the high winds earlier in the year. Picture: Keith Heppell
Checking for damage from the high winds earlier in the year. Picture: Keith Heppell

“We had to do a full inspection of the whole steeple, from spire-top to ground,” said Sam. “We’d been there previously – a year ago – and that was to do an initial inspection, but we found it so much greater than they allowed for that we had to come back.”

He continued: “They’re doing some stone replacement at the moment. We’ve done a big photographic survey and then we’re going to get a specification given to us by the architect as to what the repairs need to be and so on.”

Sam notes that the some of the stonework is fracturing in places and that there are “loose bits that need to be renewed”. “It’s difficult though, it’s just the age,” he added.

The members of the team were also inspecting storm damage during the “six or seven-hour” job. “We’ll get the specification from the architect as to what they want us to do for each area,” said Sam, “because the scale was quite unknown.”

The steeple stands at the liturgical north-west corner of the the grade I-listed church at the corner of Lensfield Road and Hills Road. The tower rises in three stages with angle buttresses.

Sam notes that it’s one of the highest ones they’ve worked on and also reveals that the team sends up a drone to carry out part of the insepection. “We fly over there and might say, ‘Yes, we need to go up and see it in person’ to check if that’s a crack or if it’s just a line or a detail.”

A steeple jack working on the spire of the Catholic church on Hills Road. Picture: Keith Heppell
A steeple jack working on the spire of the Catholic church on Hills Road. Picture: Keith Heppell

Sam’s dad was doing what is known in the trade as ‘aid climbing’. “That is bascially to ascend to the top initially,” said Sam, “and then from there we rig the ropes and the other person can come up next to them.”

Sam added: “It [the church] is one of the ones that we enjoy a lot because the views are stunning, and it’s such an amazing building to work on – it’s the architecture and the character of the place and the height that we get to.”

For more on the church, visit olem.org.uk. For more on WallWalkers, go to wallwalkers.co.uk.



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