Description:Pictured with scaffolding in place, workmen begin the first stage of restoration in 1953 on the stonework of St. Chad’s Church, Stafford. Please contact us if you recognise anyone in the photograph.
The Vicar, the Rev. G A Wroe, appealed to the townspeople of Stafford to contribute to the restoration fund for St. Chad’s Church. He said “We owe it to the town and the county to preserve such a building”. The restoration work was proceeding rapidly on the exterior stonework of the north aisle, but more funds were needed to restore the whole of the church exterior. The restoration fund of £1,500, the greater part of which was contributed by the congregation, would pay for the restoration of the north aisle and the tower. It was hoped that the appeal would be successful so that work could proceed from stage to stage.
Many Victorian restorations needed to be corrected and in the case of St. Chad’s the rain had caused a great deal of damage to the soft stonework. In earlier years some of the previous restoration work had used soft Hollington stone. The mortar intervals varied considerably and in some places the cavities between the decayed fabric was not filled in. Work was in progress chiselling all the intervals to a width of about half an inch. The spaces would be filled with cut tiles, a system adopted by the National Trust, which Mr Wroe said produced a permanent and aesthetically pleasing effect.
Mr E J Hamlet, foreman of the work, which was carried out by Robert Bridgeman and Sons, of Lichfield, said that the building was being tackled in time, because as the work proceeded, it was found that the fabric was in a worse state than had been first thought. One corrective measure being taken was the digging of a trench next to the North aisle exterior, which would be filled with rubble to stop damp getting into the fabric. The filling in of cavities in the stone was cheaper than new stonework and he said it looked better. The firm had used this method on Churches in Tamworth and Walsall. After the north aisle has been completed, the scaffolding would be erected on the tower.
This photograph was published in the Staffordshire Newsletter on Saturday 24 October 1953. Reproduced by kind permission of the Staffordshire Newsletter who retain copyright.