The sound of hammering is now to be heard at the east end of Bath Abbey. Contractors, Emery Brothers have finished boarding the interior walls to protect them while work begins on lifting the first of many hundreds of ledger stones.
It’s a multi-million-pound project to stabilise the church floor – where cavities have formed amongst the six thousand burials beneath – and install a new central heating system.
Experts from Sally Strachey Historic Conservation will be setting up workshops alongside the contractors to repair and conserve many of the memorial stones being lifted.
Wessex Archaeology will also be involved in keeping an eye on what is found though it is known when Sir George Gilbert Scott was called in – back in the 1860’s – to carry out conservation work and upgrade facilities – that lifted stones were put back in any order and basically used as flooring material. So the original placing has been lost.
Here’s some footage l shot yesterday.
