St Thomas Church in Stockton Heath was built in 1868 from Hollington stone hewn from a local but now disused quarry. As with all buildings constructed from soft sandstone they eventually wear away from the constant freeze/thaw and wild North Westerly’s that tear across the Cheshire plains. St Thomas was no exception and when we eventually got up the scaffold to survey the stone we could see the many delaminating surfaces and blown tracery. As usual we found that previous repairs had used hard cementatious pointing and “plastic” fillers to faults which had exacerbated the rate at which the stonework was deteriorating.
Undaunted we set a course to bring the bell tower back to life by restoring almost everything. 1500 new indented stones and new high quality fine tracery carved by our own Stonemasons combined with heritage approved lime pointing gave the exterior of the tower a fresh look without detracting from its historic roots. A new roof to the tower capped with a re guilded weather vane ensured that the wildest Warrington weather wouldn’t penetrate onto the new full peal of bells. New solid oak louvers to the bell chamber crafted by our Carpenter set the restored tracery off perfectly. A new kitchen and toilets at the bottom of the tower using solid oak details brought the Church amenities back up to date.

Location
Stockton Heath Warrington
Summary

New stonework and pointing to Tower
New Tower roof
New Bell Louvers
New Kitchen and toilets
New full peel of bells

“The completed contract is a good example of careful conservation work and I know the church members are very pleased indeed with the result. Well done.”

REBECCA J GRIMSHAW, B.A. (Hons), B.Arch (Manc), RIBA, AABC – Conservation Architect
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