Behind the Scenes: Exploring a Historic Restoration on a Hard Hat Tour
By Natalie Thomas
Last week St Mary’s hosted keen visitors embarking on our monthly hard hat tour. These tours offer a unique experience to see the church while it is closed to the public and see the progress firsthand. I joined a group on our hard hat tour to share it with everyone in this latest blog!
Natalie, navigating the scaffolding
We first met our participants outside the Church and after a health and safety briefing by our site manager, we ventured into the church to begin the tour. As discussed in the last blog, one of the primary areas of work currently underway is an archaeological dig in preparation for new flooring around the future café and learning area. This was the first area of interest our group were directed to, and we were shown the artifacts found. The watching brief was a key area of interest for participants who asked many questions surrounding the human remains and what had been found. As the middle of the Church was where the original Anglo-Saxon Church was built, it is likely that the outer edges of the current Church were built on the cemetery that once surrounded the original Church. This is why the most complete surviving skeleton found has been estimated to come from Anglo-Saxon times. However, most of the remains have been discovered incomplete which piqued the tour group’s curiosity. During the Victorian renovation of the Church, the flooring was re-laid, but unlike modern archaeologists, the restorers of that time were not as respectful to the remains beneath. Our team believes that this is why most of the human remains discovered during our excavation are incomplete. It is likely that when the Victorians dug up the foundations to lay new flooring, they disturbed the burial sites and reburied the displaced bones without care, mixing them haphazardly with the surrounding soil.
After learning more about the archaeology of the Church, the group walked up the centre isle and discussed more about the heritage of St Mary’s. Our site manager, Lee, shared plans for repurposing the wood from the shortened pews. This had been planned to be reused for future projects since the start of the work and Newark College students have been working hard removing the nails from it, preparing it to be reused. Excitingly, the wood will be given to Newark College for students to make into furniture for the children’s area of the church. Sustainability and maintaining the heritage of the Church is very important to us. We were proud to share this news with members of our congregation and local community on the tour to demonstrate how hard our site team are working to preserve the Church’s history.
Site Manager, Lee, talking to the tour group
Bravely the team were led up the ladders in the scaffolding to the roof. Our group were toured around the perimeter of the roof and shown the stonemasonry works. The roof was a beautiful place to explore with intricate statues and embellishments. The group got stuck in talking to the stonemasons and taking photos before making our way down!
This tour was an outstanding success with a visitor claiming it helped them ‘realise the value of this historic building and the privilege it is to have it in our town’. Thank you to the brilliant Anna and site team, Lee and Sam, who led the group around! Our hard hat tours differ from tour to tour, depending on what renovation is happening at the time. For those who have already joined a tour, we highly recommend a return visit later to see the progress and explore new aspects of the restoration. Spots are filling up quickly, so if you’re interested in witnessing the restoration progress firsthand, be sure to book your place on an upcoming tour from August onwards! We hope to see you at one of these tours soon!
