Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 26th September, 2024)

What a stunningly beautiful picture to wake up. Thank you.

It amazing what could be done all those years ago with the equipment available.
I surprises me that English Heritage can insist that the wood for repairs has to come from the same woodland....is that woodland still standing & how can the oak be seasoned as it would have been back then ?

A good point Helen about ‘seasoning the oak’.
I think the oak came from woodland near Adlington but in all likelihood it’s probably long gone under a housing estate or motorway!

No wonder English Heritage could cost the church a fortune.If a town/city has been built where the original Oak came from how can any oak be used from there? Oak like all timber has to be seasoned and OLD Oak would have to be sourced and may be hard to come by but there will be somewhere that as it

Master Craftsmen and far superior to anything these days. Makes me wonder how it escaped the Reformation. It could quite easily have been burned and left without the roof. I wonder which Woodland it came from…might it have been around Haigh?

Worth saving and credit to those involved in the fast rate of fund raising.
Impressive and good to see work in action, courtesy of Colin.

It seems unreasonable that the powers-that-be insist on wood from the same woodland.....as Colin says, in this day and age, the woodland is probably long gone. Surely it's better to have oak from an alternative source than to let the roof deteriorate because the original woodland is no longer there?

Veronica, the current church is the third to be built on the site in the 1580's so it was in the middle of the English Reformation which took place between the 1530's and 1603 so it lacks the more flamboyant trappings of a more traditional Catholic Church.
That said there is a chapel within St Wilfrid's know as the Standish Chapel, the Standish family were Catholic's and having their own entrance door (still there) they retained the use of this chapel for their own services and the oak roof beams are more intricately carved.
The rights to this chapel were eventually handed over to the Rector and Church Wardens in 1901 by Henry Noailles Widdington Standish as the Standish family dynasty drew to a close after 800 years.

In mentioning Death Watch Beetle, it reminds me of two things:
1. The Poem by Walter de la Mare - Some One.
Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Someone came knocking;
I'm sure-sure-sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.
Sat in the dark as children in front of a open fire when this was read
scared the life out of us.
2. The 1998 Film, Practical Magic, a comedy fantasy film described at the time a Frightful, Humerous and Enchanting Staring Sandra Bullock and Nicola Kidman as the sisters, Stocking Channing and Dianne Wiest as the Aunts and Aiden Quinn as Officer Gary Hall.
A must watch film for Halloween.

Interesting photo Colin, and a great shame about the infestation of wood chewing larvae of death watch beetles, it'll add greatly to the costs of repairs.

Veronica, so true about them being master craftsmen, and there still are folks who carry on in these traditional crafts and the rebuilding or repairing of ancient buildings such as churches, I doubt they'll ever be out of work.
https://www.ecclesiasticalandheritageworld.co.uk/news/450-championing-our-heritage-with-modern-craftsmanship

Colin - i suspect someone has been slightly misleading you

1) a minor thing - it would not be English Heritage who who would be making any comments on materials. They just look after certain properties and sites these days a bit like the National Trust. The responsibility for Listed Buildings is now with Historic England

2) more importantly I cannot imagine Historic England would be so pedantic as too insist on a specific woodland as this is extremely unlikely to still be available. What they most likely are insisting upon is that the oak is sourced from English type woodland which is much more open than the deep forests in Europe. The English woodland grown trees have a shorter, fatter bole and have a different grain than the continental ones which tend to be have a taller/thinner bole. The trees even though they are the same species would have different constructional issues and appearances

Cyril / Veronica you are both so right. These days those craftsmen and now women are so talented. To watch a stonemason or carpenter carver at work gives me a thrill.
These days they do have more modern tools available so how this skilled work was undertake centuries ago is amazing.

Colin, don't you mean Stockard Channing, or is it what you call her.

Colin, I can't believe you have quoted that poem......I learned that in the Infants' Department at Ince Central School and have never forgotten it! Oddly, we had an open fire in the classroom surrounded by a huge fireguard on which damp gloves and scarves steamed gently on Winter days! This was in the old Ince Central School where Central Flats now stand. I imagine our regular p-a-d member Elizabeth remembers the school too, although she didn't necessarily learn the poem. Thanks for the memory!

Derek, it could be a Freudian Slip but more likely just a typo!
Carolaen, you seem to be more familiar with these matters than the person that informed me. I shall defer to your judgement. Thanks.

Yes,Irene you are right my memory of the school is crystal clear but my class never learned that poem.May have been because we had a different teacher? Anyway,back the church ceiling,why don't the C of E just pay for the repairs to be done?