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Home Building News Transept Update - March 2008
Transept Update - March 2008 PDF Print E-mail
Saturday, 01 March 2008 00:00

I have good news. At the end of February we are still within budget and the project is still technically up to date. However, a couple of delays will now almost inevitably come into play. I always say there is nothing straight-forward around an old church. And so it has proved.

Getting the sizes right for the stone mullions, which are the stone frames for the windows in the new Transept has taken the stone people a little more time than expected, which will delay us a few weeks. Their design and sizing work is finished and they are now making the stone mullions and they should be installed by the end of this month. The stained glass to be inserted in the windows will be ready either just before or just after the Twelfth fortnight. This also on track and, needless to say, we do not have to wait for the stained glass before we can worship again in the church. The electrical work, under the watchful eye of our own Gary Phair, continues apace and the new light fittings up at the roof beams will soon be installed. Hopefully the three new chandeliers, to reflect the design of the three chandeliers for candles given in 1841 by the Londonderry  family, will be ready for installation by the end of the month. The new sound system will be installed along with the lights. It will make quite an impact, not in terms of loudness, but in pure audibility. There will be three speakers on each side of the Nave, two in the North Transept and one in the South. Then the church will be painted and decorated. When we began this project, it was the intention to conserve, if possible, the old stone flags forming the Nave floor, and then try to match new stone in the Transept and Baptistry to the old in the Nave. Unfortunately, we found that the sandstone was laid on earth and thus had always been damp. There was nothing to protect it. Parishioners will remember how, when there was wet weather, the rough hessian carpet  clearly showed where water was coming up from the ground. That will have chilled the church and caused condensation. The intention had been to lift the flags, turning them over to use again, skimming them to refresh the colour. But the stone was ruined and the builders showed me how easy it was to crumble it in my fingers. That explained why the floor was so rough and cracked. Due to the water of the years, it had become more sand than stone. We will now floor the church throughout using a large tile 800 x 400mm (2ft 7 inches x 1ft 4) with colours in it similar to the sandstone floor when it was new. Breaking the sandstone in our hands gave us an idea of the colours when fresh. The tiles have been ordered and will be delivered by the end of March. Already a dampproof course has been laid on the hardcore and the cement sub-floor has gone in. Then insulation will follow with more cement on top, and after that the tiles. So, instead of finishing by the end of March, a realistic estimate is the end of April. Having come this far, I can only say that worship in the Parochial Hall has gone far better than we could have hoped. We have managed to make the Hall work. There is a lovely blend of informality and dignity. Once again, I thank Joe, our sexton, because he has had the The South Transept and Renovation of St Mary’s unenviable task of putting out all the chairs for Sunday morning worship. Then he has to put them all away again. He has also had all extra work entailed in two funerals from the Hall. Be all that as it may, when we return to St Mary’s by the end of April, I trust that it will feel like we have never been away. It will be the same St Mary’s, but with some more space and more light, the same pews, the same choir stalls, the same rails at the Chancel steps. And so on Christian worship in these parts began with the Cistercian Abbey in the 12th century. Suppressed in 1546 or thereabouts by Henry VIII at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, barely 60 years later a small church was restored for Protestant worship from the ruins in 1610. So there will have been people in Comber worshipping in the new church who will have remembered the old church and will have told the younger generation stories about it, the people and the clergy, who, of course, were the Cistercian monks. That 1610 church was demolished in 1840 to make way for yet another new church, the Nave and the Tower that we know so well today, which we are renovating. Towards the end of the 19th century the Sanctuary was built and in 1912 the North Transept was constructed. A mere 96 years later we are constructing a South Transept to give space and light. What we are embarked upon is just another chapter in the long history of Comber Parish; it is another stage in the Christian pilgrimage. In this place the people of God have never stood still. I thank all our parishioners for the way you have been so supportive and understanding. Soon after Easter should see us moving towards the church again. In the autumn we will rededicate our church and ourselves to Christ’s Service. When the stained glass windows are installed in the summer, St Mary’s will once again eloquently speak in silence of things unchanging. The very peace of the church will whisper eternity. Church life will continue with ministry, worship, counselling, healing, weddings, funerals and baptisms. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be…
Amen.
Jonathan Barry