To enable full investigation of the roof and the heavily damaged upper stages of the tower internally there had to be scaffolding so the structural engineers can examine and assess it in detail. So, at least for a while, we had the privilege of being able to see and touch up close parts of the tower previously only visible from the ground or by drone and experience a perspective very few people have had for most likely 100 years.
One interesting find is that there are several wooden beams within the structure of the tower. One is one of the huge beams that once formed part of the bell frame. It’s rotten in one section, but almost completely solid over most of its length. Four massive beams used to run East/West across the tower and above them was another layer of seven smaller beams, together forming an extremely strong grid to hang and probably swing the bells. Four additional beams survive as lintels and as a beam for the old floor of the second level.
We also have no photographs from any time of what the floors or the bell frame looked like. If anyone has any at all we would be enormously interested to see them!
TOCAG would love to get as many as possible of the five surviving beams analysed through dendrochronology, which is usually quite an accurate date can be determined when the wood was growing and cut down. There is no guarantee the timber is original to the tower, it may have been a later replacement. Either way it would be a fascinating insight into the tower’s history.
Stairs
One of the best and most exciting surviving features of the tower is the spiral staircase in the Southwest corner.
Despite for the first time in decades having exposed a flagged and paved floor level, the door opening is only 132cm high at its apex. Tudor people were on average 10cm shorter than today, but that does not explain the height of this door. Additionally, the doorway opening out onto the first level is 171cm high, which suggests the original Tudor floor level in the tower is 40cm below the surface we have just exposed. We wonder what is down there and whether we may at some point see if at least in the small area around the stairs it may be possible to excavate and ‘step down’ to make this doorway accessible without crouching.
Also, strangely, just inside this door is a bar of modern concrete laid from side to side, on top of loose soil and rubble. We don’t know what it is there for or who put it there but hope to get an answer from the stonemason and structural engineer. If possible, we want to remove it and the rubbish piled behind it to expose the original bottom steps and their floor.
During the condition survey in 2023 one side, or jamb, of the door at the bottom of the spiral staircase was found to be missing. As the final parts of the tower were cleared down to the stone floor we were able to install the acrow, support the stone and raise it back into position to support the wall above.
Originally the stairs went all the way up to the roof, but the last quarter is ruined and it looks like it was capped off at bell chamber height even before the concrete slab was put on the roof. Even so, the staircase is a superb feature for a church of this size.
The HE grant project budget covers investigating and coming up with a structural investigation and design for what it would take to make these stairs usable again and put back the floors, so visitors could climb up the stairs out the ringing chamber and bell chamber – enabling use for storage, display and event space. The future of the tower depends on the community developing opportunities like this as part of a business plan to apply for funding. If we all work together, these things could become a reality. For now the stairs are not practically usable, except by hibernating butterflies and ladybirds.
