Autumn 2015 Past Present Future
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PAST PRESENT FUTURE The Newsletter of West Midlands Historic Buildings Trust and Worcestershire Building Preservation Trust Cost of Printing/Postage: £1.70 – Free to Members ___________________________________________ AUTUMN 2015 see pages 4-7 Contents also include Where in the World? See page 12 Contents also include Project Director’s Report Lye and Wollescote Cemetery Chapels Windows Made Volunteers care for Lye and Wollescote cemetery More Bournville……and still no Chocolate! Vic Smallshire 1945-2014 West Midlands Heritage At Risk 2015 Events Programme ___ _____________________________________________________________________________ Company Offices: Adam House, Birmingham Road, Kidderminster, Stourbridge DY10 2SH Registered Company No. 1876294 Registered Charity No. 516158 VAT Registration No. 669 8183 73 WMHBT & WBPT Autumn 2015 Newsletter Page 1 labour to be currently on site: a site WMHBT & WBPT Projects manager; 4 stone masons; 3 lime Progress Reports plasterers; 1 electrician; 2 plumbers / heating engineers; 3 roofers; 1 by David Trevis-Smith, labourer; 3 carpenters; 1 lead Projects Organiser worker; 2 stained glass specialists; 2 blacksmiths; and 6 scaffolders - an Work by Croft Building & impressive list of heritage skills Conservation to deliver the West being supported by this project and Midlands Historic Buildings Trust in furtherance of the charitable project involving the Lye and objects of the Trust. Wollescote Cemetery Chapels building is making steady progress; Meanwhile the heritage-related works remain on course to be project activities are continuing completed before Christmas. apace. External works completed include An estimated total of approximately roofing repairs, stone replacements 600 people have so far heard about and pointing repairs to the tower, the project through a combination of pointing at high level, and boundary site visits and offsite talks including railings and gates repaired and re- education and community groups. decorated. Thanks are due to the small team of people helping to make that happen, Internally, works completed include led by Ian Parkin and Andrew ceilings to both chapels repaired and Meredith, and involving Carolyn re-decorated, and the mezzanine Healy as Community Facilitator, floor installed to the former Anglican Jean Weston and Marlene Price chapel. Stair well block-work and providing talks and historical structural steelworks have been information, and work on fitted to accommodate the new publications supported by Nigel internal stairs into the basement. Brown. Lime plastering and glazing is almost completed, including the new Amongst recent activities, on 3rd windows (as reported previously) by October Jean and Marlene attended glass artist Paul Floyd inspired by the community Local History Day at ideas and artworks from pupils at Dudley Archives and Local History Redhill Secondary School, and Centre, where they also organised students at BMETC Art & Design and put together a display stand College and BMETC Kidderminster specially for the event, and on 15th Academy. October Carolyn gave a presentation to update members of the Lye & At the October progress meeting, Wollescote Historical Society on the Croft reported the following skilled project progress. WMHBT & WBPT Autumn 2015 Newsletter Page 2 Forthcoming events are as follows, be willing to help in this way, please to which members are warmly contact John Woodall (email: invited: [email protected]; or by telephone on 01384 292644). * Saturday 28th November: Public Open Morning on site 10.30am- I’m pleased to say real progress is 1.00pm; also being made with our other ‘live’ project, by The Worcestershire * Saturday 5th December: Grave Building Preservation Trust, at the Tidy Day in the cemetery 10.00am. Weavers’ Cottages in Horsefair, Kidderminster. Further details of these events are given in the Events Programme At the time of writing our architects, towards the end of the Newsletter. Rodney Melville & Partners, and quantity surveyors, Austin Newport, Carolyn would be pleased to hear are in the process of appraising six tenders received for the building from you or people you’re in contact contract. Preliminary indications are with to provide details about the that the tenders are within budget above events and/or joining the new which, if subsequently confirmed, is ‘Friends of Lye & Wollescote Cemetery’. There are lots of ways to fantastic news as it will mean the get involved; for more on this, Trust can let the contract for work to start on site early in the new year. Carolyn can be contacted by email: [email protected] or by telephone on 01952 582111. A very successful volunteer work party was held on 29th August, with a full skip load of accumulated debris The Friends have helped with finding cleared from the site and primer local venues willing to host applied to protect the new gates to temporary displays of the exhibition the side entrance. Provided the stand about the World War 1 book; venues so far are Lye library, building contract starts in the near Stourbridge library, Cross Walks future as planned, this will have been the final work party, as we will Community Centre, Christchurch need to hand the site over to the and Bethel Chapel. Please contact contractors. Carolyn if you know of other potential venues. Sincere thanks to everyone who has helped with the series of volunteer We would also welcome members to work parties over several years, join the small team of volunteers to which have been valuable in occasionally cut the grass and tidy demonstrating support for the project the garden alongside the Superintendent’s Lodge; if you would to funders and reduced the rate of WMHBT & WBPT Autumn 2015 Newsletter Page 3 deterioration in the condition of the incorporating blacked out lines (to cottages. represent the leadwork) as well as the shapes of the coloured glass Watch this space for exciting news panels. Paper templates of each of for the Weavers’ Cottages project in the pieces of glass were then fixed future reports! onto the cartoons and the whole then hung up to give as accurate a representation as possible of the LYE AND WOLLESCOTE finished work. CEMETERY CHAPELS: MANUFACTURE OF THE NEW STAINED GLASS WINDOWS In the Sumer 2015 edition of this Newsletter, we heard how glass artist, Paul Floyd, had worked with students from Redhill Secondary School and Birmingham Metropolitan College to produce designs for two new stained glass windows (replacing original plain glass windows) at Lye and Wollescote Cemetery Chapels . The original approved small-scale designs In this edition we re-visit Paul’s studio to see how the students’ The increase in the scale of the designs were transformed into the designs and exploring the lighting actual windows. These have now conditions showed Paul that the been completed and installed, and relationship between certain will therefore be available to see on elements of the early designs and the next Chapels open day on 28th some of the colour combinations November 2015, details of which are originally proposed were not given in the Events Programme completely satisfactory. towards the end of the Newsletter. As a consequence, although the Beginning with the small scale general essence of the original designs with which our previous designs clearly remained, there was article concluded, Paul first a lengthy process of minor produced, on tracing paper, a full adjustments in order to achieve the size “cartoon” of each window, best possible results. WMHBT & WBPT Autumn 2015 Newsletter Page 4 Once the cartoons had been The transfer which is digitally printed completed, the plain glass shapes is made up of an enamel which, were then cut to size and once fired onto the glass, becomes a preparations made for the roundels permanent image of the artwork. He and etchings. tested several different types of glass for the roundels and carried out a series of test firings to ensure the best finish. The etching was then carried out by sandblasting and the extraordinary quality and detail, particularly in the reproduction in the windows of early O.S. maps of the area, was achieved by making a detailed negative stencil of the areas to be etched. Cutting glass and layout Paul had already decided that he wanted the roundels to contain exact representations of the students’ work rather than his own copies of their designs. He therefore began by scanning their artworks into his computer and prepared them to be made into a digital transfer for glass. Etching stencil process The lead frame for each window was then set out on a timber backboard. The strips of lead used in the construction of the windows (known as cames) are H-shaped in section so that a piece of glass can be slotted into each of the open sides of Paul at work on the windows in his the H. The came was curved to the studio correct shape with a tool known as a WMHBT & WBPT Autumn 2015 Newsletter Page 5 fid and, as each piece was fitted, it on each side, although it takes was held in place by a farrier’s several weeks for the cement to cure horseshoe nail until the next piece fully. was ready to be installed. The completed windows were then sent to the glazier for installation. Horizontal steel bars are set into the masonry on each side of the window openings and the panel is then attached to the bars with copper ties. It is perhaps a sad reflection of the times that window protection will be necessary (for all the Chapel windows). This will take the form of a fine, external, steel mesh, made to the shape of the window and set into the window reveal, which is much less obtrusive that the perspex sheets applied to many church and Leading-up process chapel windows and not at all visible in the internal view. Once all of the components were assembled, every position where Unfortunately, due to the timing of lead cames met was soldered on the contract, the manufacture took both sides of the window.