Further reports on the building of new Hall....

As you will see from the photographs below the block work has been in the process of being constructed , although there was a hold-up one day for three hours when a Building Regulations Inspector wanted the damp membrane put in such a position that damp would have entered the building. Mercifully, he was eventually persuaded of the error he had made................!!

The gas supply has been repositioned to enter the new hall in line with the position of the new boiler room. While the gas supply was being re-routed the block work was held up as scaffolding is needed on site and gas engineers will not work on site if there is scaffolding in situ. So while the gas work was taking place the builders started to erect the interior walls to form the new vestry, toilets, storerooms and boiler room.

Over the last few weeks the building of the block work has proceeding apace and the lintels for the windows and doorways are now in situ.

I have been asked about the finish to the new building and can assure everyone that it will be stone clad. Each of the spaces for windows will have the same style as the high street end of the building with stone reveals to both window apertures and doors. At some point shortly the planning officers will return to the site to approve the choice of stone finishing and the roof tiles. The stone work to create the door and window frames is being carved in Messrs Rattee & Ketts workshop and will arrive on site rather like a jigsaw puzzle to be put together and affixed in situ.

As of 2nd July the builders have completed the block work. This means that external and internal walls are now complete (except for the stone facing). Next week the steel girders will be put in situ and on Wednesday (7th) the roof trusses are due to arrive and roofing will start shortly thereafter. The stone work which will finish the exterior appearance of the building will not be affixed until the roof is finished and the scaffolding has been removed. This is in order that the stone is not damaged by workmen ferrying things up and down ladders or by the taking down of the scaffolding.

Once the roof is on and the building is watertight the first internal fixing can take place—that is all the wiring and pipe-work etc that will be situated behind the plasterwork. I am told by the site foreman, Mr Geoff Quinsee, that once the plasterwork is done the building will look very dark and smaller internally and this will be the case until the decoration takes place when it will look bigger again. I took a visitor into the site this week and he remarked that the hall looked small from Church Street, but in reality was a ‘Tardis’!