Porlock InSpired Project February 2025 Update

Activity planning is progressing well and gaining momentum with strong partnerships being formed amongst others with local schools and the Exmoor National Park Authority education staff. The latter are working on plans to have activities related to woodland management, which includes shingle-making, hopefully in Porlock. Trial activities will take place over the next few months to give us an idea on what would or would not work for activities in the Delivery stage. We aim to showcase the results of these activities together with architectural drawings and plans at a special InSpired Heritage Open Day probably in July of this year. Meanwhile the fundraising timetable is constantly being updated to keep up with trust providers timeframes for awards and approval.

The project to re-shingle the St Dubricius Spire is making progress, albeit slowly. The key activity recently has been a visit by the architect, structural engineer and a specialist roofing company. They opened up a small area of the church roof by removing a few slates to examine the condition of the underlying timber structure. The biggest surprise was to discover that there is a layer of horsehair insulation under the church roof slates. Unfortunately it does not do a very good job of keeping the church warm! The team were also able to make a further examination of parts of the spire structure and now better understand its condition and construction. Detailed specifications for repairs have been prepared and the first submission made to the Diocese for approval for the repair works. For a grade 1 listed building we cannot just engage a contractor and get on with the work, there are several approval hurdles to jump first. One relates to the resident bats. We had a bat recorder in the spire for several weeks over the Christmas period, which we hope will have recorded their high frequency sounds. Those recording will we hope identify the particular type of bats we have in the spire which will guide what we can do and when.

We have quarterly progress meetings with NLHF which we find very useful as our contact is very approachable and able to advise us on issues which arise. These meetings keep us focussed on the critical timeframes in our Development Stage and ensure that we are prepared as best we can for our Delivery application. If that is successful we expect the heritage activities and the actual repair works are likely to start in early 2027.

P.S.

Although not part of the spire project a brief note on the church clock. Late in 2024 it stopped several times, running for shorter and shorter periods, until it became impractical to keep restarting it. The clock specialist who recently overhauled it visited in early February, and identified one possible cause. But like all intermittent faults they are hard to pin down. Two faces are currently disconnected to see if the transmission system is at fault. It is running longer between stops, but unfortunately at the moment not continuously. Further visits will be needed.