The many faces of St Mary >

There are more than 450 churches called St Mary in England alone! Over the years we have been involved with quite a few of those. With Christmas fast approaching, we thought now would be a good time to highlight a few of them.

At St Mary’s Banbury, we assist in the ongoing programme of up keep and maintenance which have included previous substantial repairs to the vestry roof, the chancel stone repairs, a review of the chancel roof, church pew condition investigations; as well as supporting Nick Cox Architects with heritage grants.

The stone repairs at the church mainly focused on finding a safe way to construct access scaffold that maintained access at the ground floor to the church but did not overload existing window arches or the vestry roof and also worked around the significant historic organ. Surveying the chancel roof was particularly interesting as we got a rare view inside the ceiling plenum, looking at the construction of the domed structure.

At St Mary’s Shipton Under Wychwood, a Grade 1 listed building, we have been asked to carry out emergency investigations following the failure of a timber purlin in the nave roof. Our work was undertaken in conjunction with the timber testing specialist Huw Lloyd of Environmental Building Services and under the watchful eye of Montgomery Architects.

We designed the birdcage scaffold to prop up the roof to allow sequential repairs, without the removal of roof coverings.This birdcage scaffold also allowed ongoing use of church. In fact, shortly after this intervention, a wedding took place, allowing the bride to carry on with seven generations of family tradition to get married in this St Mary's!

Our investigations have highlighted further defects beyond the failed member and a programme of detailed repairs for the whole roof is being developed.

In the summer we visited St Mary & St John's Church in Cowley, Oxford following a quinquennial inspection by Acanthus Clews Architects that highlighted some concerns with the structure. Our survey revealed that the poor condition of the terracotta pot floor to the clock and winding rooms put them out of access until structural repairs can be undertaken.

Luckily the historic three sided clock is now controlled by electronic winding and not by previously daily winding by hand. The church were still able to continue the traditional of allowing visitors to climb to the top of the tower during the Cowley Carnival.