shewhomust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust) wrote2018-04-22 08:41 pm
shewhomust) wrote2018-04-22 08:41 pm
Entry tags:
The Works
You wouldn't know it to look at the tourist literature, which shows the cathedral in all its timeless majesty, but the crossing tower is undergoing extensive repairs:
The scaffolding went up at the beginning of 2016 and will, if all goes well, come down by the end of this year. Actually, saying "went up" doesn't do it justice: it was built down from above, and is suspended. The bit sticking out from the side of the sheeting is a lift (which I am very glad I don't have to use to reach my workplace).
That's the background: but the question is, what are they doing behind that veil? Yesterday there was an open day at the Cathedral Works Yard, and we went along to have a look.
The Works Yard is tucked away between the Cathedral, the College and the Bailey: if you leave the cloister and walk across the College as if you were going to walk through the gatehouse into the Bailey, but turn left just short of the gate, you pass under a sort of tunnel between buildings:
(This picture is looking back towards the College). On our left was the masons' workshop. There was a stonemason putting up a very plausible pretence of being hard at work, but since I am rarely satisfied with my pictures of people, here's a display of tools, instead:
At the far end of the yard, more masonry work was going on in a metal shelter. This, it seems, is a crocketed finial:
a 'crocket' being that swirly decorative thing (pause to look it up: ah! like croquet - and, I think, crotchet - it's a hook). The mason has - of course - made his mark on the top:
The brand on the tin is 'Rose of Jericho' but it is also labeled in marker pen 'lactic acid casein powder' - yes, the cathedral is stuck together with cheese. Also with lead:
We spent so long admiring all these things that by the time we moved on to look at the joiners' workshop, the joiners had all gone home. So instead we went to the Heritage Centre, where the teapot is waiting to be returned to its position outside the Newcastle Building Society:
But that's another story...
The scaffolding went up at the beginning of 2016 and will, if all goes well, come down by the end of this year. Actually, saying "went up" doesn't do it justice: it was built down from above, and is suspended. The bit sticking out from the side of the sheeting is a lift (which I am very glad I don't have to use to reach my workplace).
That's the background: but the question is, what are they doing behind that veil? Yesterday there was an open day at the Cathedral Works Yard, and we went along to have a look.
The Works Yard is tucked away between the Cathedral, the College and the Bailey: if you leave the cloister and walk across the College as if you were going to walk through the gatehouse into the Bailey, but turn left just short of the gate, you pass under a sort of tunnel between buildings:
(This picture is looking back towards the College). On our left was the masons' workshop. There was a stonemason putting up a very plausible pretence of being hard at work, but since I am rarely satisfied with my pictures of people, here's a display of tools, instead:
At the far end of the yard, more masonry work was going on in a metal shelter. This, it seems, is a crocketed finial:
a 'crocket' being that swirly decorative thing (pause to look it up: ah! like croquet - and, I think, crotchet - it's a hook). The mason has - of course - made his mark on the top:
The brand on the tin is 'Rose of Jericho' but it is also labeled in marker pen 'lactic acid casein powder' - yes, the cathedral is stuck together with cheese. Also with lead:
We spent so long admiring all these things that by the time we moved on to look at the joiners' workshop, the joiners had all gone home. So instead we went to the Heritage Centre, where the teapot is waiting to be returned to its position outside the Newcastle Building Society:
But that's another story...
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