The repairs to the decayed brickwork of the original vestry walls has now been completed and they will last for more than the next 50 years as the bricks are harder and more suitable for their situation than the original ones.
The builders have done a very good job matching them in, both in texture, colour and mortar joints. The bricks look a little bit new at the moment, but will soon weather down and be hardly noticeable, but the walls look very much tidier. As you can see, the ground is still a mud bath, despite it being raked and top dressed with topsoil. It will be seeded with grass seed next month, when the weather has improved and the growing season arrives.
In the meantime, the metal fencing will remain in position all round the building in order to keep the deer off the soil and stop them churning it up both before it is sown and also while the grass is growing and getting established, so it will still look a bit like a building site for a few weeks more yet. However, the inside is almost finished. The services have not been commissioned and the electrics, audio-visual and communications wiring not finally tested. When they are signed off we should be able to effect practical completion and the building will be handed over to us.
Barbara Sheard and Michael Carver
Churchwardens