IN THE BEGINNING …
…. was the much smaller Bayswater Chapel, built to serve local residents when Bayswater was first developed by Edward Orme.
The population grew at an explosive rate and a much larger church was needed.
The ambitious new building was funded by John Allcroft, an ancestor of the current Patron of St Matthew’s. The church still has the ceremonial trowel with which the foundation stone was laid in June 1881.
FINALLY FUNDING THE CLEANING
A long-term ambition to remove the grit and grime of the industrial revolution from the handsome gothic façade of St Matthew’s was transformed into a reality by an extraordinarily generous bequest, amounting to about £300,000, from Peter Ferguson. A British born academic working at a US university, Peter had a house in Bark Place and was not only a congregant, but a regular volunteer at St. Matthew’s. Supplementing this bequest with other fundraising allowed the church to cover a final cleaning budget of about £450,000.
One body which notably did not contribute was Westminster City Council. Officers encouraged the church to apply for funding from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) towards the cleaning of the building, as a widely-used community asset including a food bank. Despite the fact that the CIL generates substantial funds from property developers in the area of the Baywater Residents Association, and despite strong support from BRA for the cleaning project, the application was denied by Westminster. It’s a sore point that local residents have no right whatsoever to influence the use of a CIL collected in their area for the express purpose of funding local infrastructure projects.
SPECIFYING THE JOB AND FINDING A CONTRACTOR
The church building committee first asked the architect who carries out the regular five-year inspections to specify the cleaning job. This involved many hard decisions, given a finite budget. The fundamental objective was to make the church a welcoming place, not to restore it to some dazzling original state using aggressive cleaning. People will recall that not all of the church was very dirty. The decision was therefore made to focus on the dirtiest public facing facades, cleaning these to a point which blended in with parts of the building, mainly at higher levels, that did not really need cleaning – an objective which has been achieved very successfully.
Once the specification was agreed, four contactors submitted tenders and were interviewed by the building committee. The contract was awarded to Sally Strachey Historic Conservation (SSHC), who impressed with their ability to complete the job without subcontracting crucial parts of the cleaning.
SCAFFOLDING
People are no doubt aware that scaffolding is a very important, and very expensive, part of any restoration of a large building like St. Matthew’s. Scaffolders experienced in conservation projects managed to erect the very tall scaffolding with minimal obstruction of the footpaths or damage to the building.
THE WORK
Since many crucial parts of the church are built from a soft sandstone, finding the right mix of non-destructive cleaning methods was essential.
A core method was “Thermatech” cleaning with superheated water. The yellow areas in the plan below were cleaned that way. Heavily encrusted areas (pink in the plan below) needed old fashioned mechanical chipping and scraping, followed by Thermatech cleaning.
Other areas (orange in the plan) had chemical poultices applied to the stonework, which were covered with clingfilm-like sheeting then left to do their work – followed by Thermatech cleaning. These can be seen in the images below. The delicate carved areas (blue and purple in the plan below) were cleaned using lasers, although sometimes some chipping and scraping was needed first.
Quite a large part of the project involved replacement of eroded and damaged parts of the building, rather than cleaning these. Not only did the right materials have to be chosen and the replacement elements created, but the mortar used to fix these had to match the mortar of the original construction. All of this was highly skilled work.
DETAILS REDISCOVERED OR RECONSTRUCTED
BEFORE AND AFTER
FROM START TO FINISH
It took about two and a half years from the start of serious planning to the completion of the job, with a period of almost one year under scaffolding while the main work was being done.
The final landing was a bumpy ride, after it became clear the main contractor was going into administration – for reasons nothing to do with the St Matthew’s project! In order the keep everyone at work and finish the job amidst this serious uncertainty, St Matthew’s agreed to underwrite any obligations to subcontractors. This plan worked, to the immense relief of all. While the contractor did go into administration, this happened the day after the scaffolding came down.
The end result will enhance the neighbourhood for many years to come.