Last year we had weeks of very wet weather and this had an adverse effect on the building fabric of Penrith Parish Rooms.
The west wall and the wall enclosing the south west staircase suffered with water ingress. The original pointing on these walls has deteriorated and allowed the water to penetrate. This is not surprising as most of the mortar is over 100 years old.
In September of this year the “Rooms” Directors discussed the problem and voted to have these walls re-pointed as a matter of urgency. Within days of the meeting, Lesley Ridley (the “Rooms” manager), had contacted and engaged the services of Neil Coates & Sons to remove and replace the pointing on the west wall and the walls enclosing the rear staircase. Neil knows the building as he did similar repairs to the east wall last year. Mr John Bodger, the Architect we rely on for guidance, specified that the mortar used for the job should comply with the standard as specified by the National Trust of Scotland for sandstone buildings.
It took several days to erect the huge scaffold around the building. Mr Coates and his employees started the pointing at the beginning of November. The scaffold allowed Mr. Coates to have a good look at the upper parts of the building that were not previously accessible. There was some extra work needed on the chimney stacks. This was reported to the Directors and Mr Coates was given the go ahead to do this work. They worked long days and some weekends to get the work done in the 5 weeks estimate. All the scaffolding was removed over the weekend of the 5/6th December. Job done, let’s hope this work will lasts another 100 years.
The costs of the work to date are:
Neil Coates and Sons – approx £30,000 for pointing, work to the chimney stacks and replace/refurbish down spouts and guttering.
Empire Scaffold Service Ltd – approx £6,500 for supply and erection of scaffolding.
These works were funded from monies saved to “Penrith Parish Rooms” Refurbishment account plus a loan from the Key Fund1
Note1 Key Fund – itself a Social Enterprise – provides tailored loan investments to businesses with a social or environmental mission throughout the North of England. Over £3m was invested in the last year, £562,500 of which was invested in the North West.
For more information about the Key Fund, visit the Website – www.thekeyfund.co.uk
