Tuesday 21 May 2013

College Hall Gets A Facelift

So autumn has officially arrived in Christchurch, we have had rain for the last 4 days (not that I expect any sympathy from those back home)



We have had some new stonemasons starting recently, and as they were working on the inside of the College Hall (and not in the rain) I thought I would trundle along and see what they were up to. 

They are tidying up the internal limestone on the upper half of the College Hall, giving it a facelift as it were. 




The majority of the original stone had already been removed and the final touches were just being done using a very impressive looking chisel (it had teeth!).  Apparently, this makes it easier to get larger pieces of stone off in one go and allows more control as the base is wider, than the traditional flat chisel. So there you go. 

Using a cement mortar, which looked a lot better than the stuff they used originally - check out the size of the pebbles: 


a mixture of new and old limestone blocks are being re-inserted and also stapled to the existing facade. 


The one of the left is new, the other two are original. You can see the indents at the end where the original cement mixture has been chipped away.



a staple! a little bit sturdier than your average paper ones


How thick part of the existing wall isn't - some of the stone was just used as a face, rather than providing any structural element. 


 View of the carved collonette, looking down, and the new cement mix. 


Random hole behind the organ, I am not sure what this is for and as there was a rather large excavation pit in the way I could not go and explore. 

 Use of brick as a form of saving on expenditure. This area was originally paneled with five forms of native timber and will be put back again when strengthening work has finished. 




Curving away from the College Hall, in my last post I mentioned that I was doing some stone work that will go up on the building. Well..... here they are in all their finished glory.  





Sat on top of the western gable on the Registry building, they will not be seen from the ground, but I know they are there... and they FIT! 

Tadaaa! 








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