11th July 2006
Today saw our own little D-Day here at St Mark’s. ‘D’ in this case being for Demolition. However 9 o’clock came and went, and so did 10 o’clock, with no sign of any lovely yellow machinery to start tearing down the crumbling, damp ridden building. A phone call was placed followed by several others which saw me back home waiting for news of what was going on. Finally the phone rang: ‘Can we meet you at the church at 1pm?’
1pm came and went, finally at 1.30pm a lone car arrived, no bulldozer, no wrecking ball, no digger to grab pieces of torn building, one solitary car.
It turns out - and I don’t know why I ever thought otherwise, must be this raging toothache addling my brain - that knocking down a building isn’t like knocking down a sandcastle, or like something seen on children’s television. Tomorrow the Electricity Board arrive to secure the supply and make sure no one gets blown up, the water needs to be dealt with too, although not sure the site could be much wetter. The building decided to leak in places it has never leaked before for its death throws. Then the rest of this week they will spend the time stripping out the inside of the building before the big yellow stuff arrives next week. Only there isn’t going to be big yellow stuff either!
So today is actually more like D-D-Day the beginning of the beginning of the demolition!
21st September 2006
The building is now slowly being taken apart, and the place looks very different:
Once brides walked through this door, smiling and nervous the sound of family, friends and her groom drifting through from the Church:
Once members of the congregation gathered here to chat before the services sharing their week, greeting each other like long lost friends, despite having seen each other recently:
Once this hall was filled with the sound of children laughing and playing, the clink of cups at coffee mornings, the sound of music at congregational get togethers:
Once this was the gents toilets - enough said about that:
Now the place echoes in the silence, the drips of water that have fought their way through the roof for years now have easier courses with tiny waterfalls trickling down the now bare brick walls. The building had many problems, too many in fact to make it feasible to save, but it is still sad to see it go.
4th October 2006
We got a Big Yellow Thing after all:
Too big to get into church and become a member of the congregation which is a bit of a relief, blessing animals is one thing, blessing big yellow things is quite another! Now with the electricity made safe and the building down, the rubble just needs to be cleared before the work can begin on preparing the site for the new building.
8th December 2006
Things have been a bit slow of late due mostly to the high winds we have been having here. Now however things are on the move again and the timber frame is progressing. It was dusk when I took these pictures of the new entrance and new toilet block, so they are not great, but something is better than nothing.
19th December 2006
The rain has finally taken a holiday and the work is now progressing once again.
Work on the walls is well underway, they are hoping to get the brickwork done before Christmas, the render will happen at a later date, and the scaffolding has also gone up so that work on the roof and brickwork can begin.
The roof trusses are up over the entrance and halls and the entrance way itself, the toilet block is having a sloping rather than a pitched roof. Wish I had known the building was going to look like this at this moment in time, would have tried to get a nativity up in those roof trusses!
The weather has meant things are now running slightly behind schedule, but the guys are working like furry to catch up and have even agreed to come in during the Christmas break to try and catch up - builders working between Christmas and New Year proof if poof was needed that miracles still happen!
16th January 2007
Today I had a good look round the inside of the re-development, of course I took my camera. Health and safety meant I finally got myself a hard hat and also caused a protracted debate about my footwear - a pair of high heeled brown leather boots - once I had proved them that I was more than capable of not falling by running up a plank for a wheel barrow up onto the scaffolding they stopped protesting about them!
The structure of the building is near complete and windows have started to go in, and the lay out of the internal rooms - apart from the toilets - is now in place.
There will be a small courtyard between the church (on the right) and the toilet block, the windows in the toilet block are on to a corridor. We hope that in good weather some tables at coffee mornings will be placed out there.
14th February 2007
The build is progressing well the roof tiles are now on and the base floor laid inside along with the first fix electricals currently taking place. The Vestry have taken the contractor on their word and are now busy planning the celebrations for the re-opening - along with delayed celebrations for our 50th anniversary which fell on the 23rd of December. The new flats which we sold the land for to fund the building work have also now started.
28th February 2007
The plasters are in and putting up plaster board and skimming. This whole process has taught me a lot, when I was on site taking these pictures I learnt that the light green plaster board isn’t just a whim but is moisture resistant - the moisture resistant stuff is going in the kitchen and toilets. The Hall is also getting its roof insulation in and the sky lights are now in place:
As are the sky lights in the corridor which runs the length of the building, this picture is taken, just outside the hall doors, looking towards the front door with the kitchen door on the right hand side and the entrance into the church on the left. There was a point when I was concerned about the light levels in this area, not any more!
The other job which has started is the installation of the metal canopy which will project out over the front door and will be supported with a large cross - this is the men just starting work on it, the first lot of metal struts can just be seen protruding from the roof line. The canopy itself should be finished this week, depending on the weather, although it will be another week or so before the cross is put in place, as they don’t manufacture that until they actually have the final on site measurements.
28th March 2007
The inside is now moving on at quite a pace with the installation of the toilet cubicles; lilac for the ladies, blue for the gents; and the kitchen. Also the outside of the toilet block is looking wonderful with it’s cedar and recalimed stone from part of the origonal building being reused.
4th April 2007
The scaffolding is down and the new entrance can now be seen in all it’s glory. Well not quite all as it isn’t quite finished but the cedar is certainly looking good and the steel cross makes a bold statement.
28th April 2007
Well we got there on a wing and a prayer.
Friday arrived with contractors still on site and a church full of things that weren’t supposed to be in it. However by 10pm a small band of people sustained by a pizza delivery had most things back from their various holiday homes into the new build and I had a shopping list of things that were needed before anyone could use the toilets in particular.
Saturday dawned bright and sunny God was certainly going to bless our day soon I was back at the church with the shopping completed. The two Jims, from the main contractor - one Jim being the foreman the other being the boss - were there to do some tweaking, putting on toilet seats, trying to relight boilers, cleaning, fixing sockets along with a collection of other small jobs. In general making the place as complete as they could before people arrived. Signs needed to go on the toilet doors to avoid any embarrassment, and it was decided that rather than ladies and gent, or men and women, we would use Adam and Eve! We now just need to find someone with the skill to transform the temporary paper signs into permeate ones.
The contractors will still be around for the next fortnight or so, but here are the final pictures of the build.
The whole design concept was to try and have the new halls mirror the concept of the Church building. From the outside it looks like it is one building; with the striking cross at the entrance and the one in the Hall window, which can be clearly seen from one of the towns main roundabouts; mirroring a cross on the outside East Gable of the Church.
The Vestry, a Disabled Toilet, and a Meeting Room are off the Foyer, along of course with the church itself, in time there will be new glass doors into it opening up the whole area. The meeting room will prove to be a particular useful space and the Foyer itself will be able to be used as an occasional extra small hall.
The Corridor which runs the full length of the new build is flooded by light from above and off it are the kitchen, the hall and the toilet block lavender toilets for the Eve’s and the Blue for the Adam’s!
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