Repairing the roof

If you've noticed scaffolding up around the church in recent months, don't panic - it is just some minor repairs to broken roof tiles, which we are doing gradually!

Drainage

If you've been wandering around the churchyard recently you may have noticed some bollards on the North side of the church, and work going on there. We have been investigating drainage problems, which have caused a lot of dampness on the North wall of the church, and found that an old soakaway was very blocked. It has now been redug, and filled with plastic crates to prevent problems in the future. Fortunately, there were no graves in this area, as it has always been a soakaway, so the work went along very smoothly. We're hoping that will sort out the problem of the dampness, and that the North wall will gradually dry out. When it is dry we will think about replastering and painting the wall.

Organ repairs about to start

The Organ at Seal Church is badly in need of cleaning and maintenance. We've been hard at work raising £5600 for this - many thanks to all who "sponsored a pipe". The work is about to start, on Monday 12th Oct.

During the work, lasting about three weeks, the church will be locked when no one is there in order to safeguard both the exposed machinery and the general public.

Services will go ahead as normal, but please take care and keep a special eye on any children in church during this time.

 If you need access to the church at other times, please contact the vicar who will arrange for you to be let in. Keyholders are asked to take care in the church if they need to be there, and to be careful to lock up when they go.

St Peter and St Paul, Seal: Time stands still...

St Peter and St Paul, Seal: Time stands still...: The good news is that the church clock is exactly right twice a day at the moment. The bad news is that it isn't right any of the res...

Ride and Stride for church funds

From the Friends newsletter Spring 2014

SEAL CHURCH TOWER

Seal Church tower is visible from many places in the surrounding area. It is a much loved local landmark, added to the simpler Medieval building in the sixteenth century. Now it not only provides a place from which to fly our flags, but also houses the bells and the Victorian clock mechanism. A small door inside the church gives access to the tower rooms via a very narrow spiral staircase. Alas, this is unlit and has no handrails, so insurance rules mean we can’t offer tower tours.

Records suggest that the tower was completed in 1529, just as the English Reformation was beginning to take hold. (The other significant event of 1529 was the start of the legal proceedings which led to the divorce of Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon, which led eventually to the separation of the English church from the Church of Rome.)

Back in Seal, though, many ordinary people would be much more aware of the changes to their own local church as the tower rose on the skyline.

I don’t know what Tudor scaffolding looked like – presumably it was wooden – but later this year we’ll get a chance to imagine that scene as more modern scaffolding goes up to provide access to some stonework on the tower which needs repair. It will take a few weeks, and we hope it will be underway by mid-September or October. It shouldn’t affect services or events in church, but it will obviously be very noticeable, so I thought I’d let you know about it in advance.

While we’re up there…

While the scaffolding is up it seemed like a good moment to refurbish the clock face, which is looking rather faded and worn, as the picture on the right shows.  The letters and hands will be re-gilded (alas, nothing so simple as a quick dab of Dulux …) and some other minor maintenance will be done. It has been on the “to do” list identified in quinquennial inspections for a while, but the cost of scaffolding just to do this made it unjustifiable on its own. This is the perfect moment, though, and if we miss this chance, who knows how many decades – or even centuries - it will be before scaffolding is needed again?

The stonework repairs and scaffolding (costing £18000) are being funded by a grant, but we need to raise the money for the clock refurbishment ourselves. Seal Village Association has kindly given us £1000, but that still leaves around £2500 for us to find. We are hoping that local people who enjoy seeing the clock might want to contribute to this fund, and we will be appealing to them to help us out during the late spring and summer. If you’d like to contribute, please send whatever you can to the Treasurer, marking your donation “Clock Face” as the picture on the right shows. The letters and hands will be re-gilded (alas, nothing so simple as a quick dab of Dulux …) and some other minor maintenance will be done. It has been on the “to do” list identified in quinquennial inspections for a while, but the cost of scaffolding just to do this made it unjustifiable on its own. This is the perfect moment, though, and if we miss this chance, who knows how many decades – or even centuries - it will be before scaffolding is needed again? The stonework repairs and scaffolding (costing £18000) are being funded by a grant, but we need to raise the money for the clock refurbishment ourselves. Seal Village Association has kindly given us £1000, but that still leaves around £2500 for us to find. We are hoping that local people who enjoy seeing the clock might want to contribute to this fund, and we will be appealing to them to help us out during the late spring and summer. If you’d like to contribute, please send whatever you can to the Treasurer, marking your donation “Clock Face”

You can download the Spring Newsletter here to find out more about plans for this year.

Tiles about to go on the roof!

The new tiles - many hundreds of which have been signed by members of our local community - are due to be put on the church roof (over the organ on the North Aisle) in the coming week.
Many thanks to all who have contributed. We have now raised over £2000 towards this.
Many thanks too, to Nicky Harvey who has put a great deal of effort into this fund-raising initiative. She hopes never to see another tile again in the whole of her life...