For those who haven’t seen it, St Mary’s is full of scaffolding while the decoration is taking place. It really is a big job, but the painting of the nave ceiling and the chancel has now largely been completed and hopefully some of the scaffolding can be taken down before Christmas.

However, as the contractors were preparing the aisle ceilings for painting, it became clear that these were not in a good state of repair and were structurally unsound. Further investigations had to be made, and look what we found when they removed part of the suspended ceiling (see photo)!

It is clearly very exciting as these are fine late-mediaeval ceilings that we didn’t know existed and probably haven’t been visible for well-over 200 years hidden above the later aisle ceilings! It looks as though these are the original aisle ceilings when the church was rebuilt in the early 16th century.

Because of their importance, we have brought together a team of leading experts to advise the PCC and the diocese as to just what we have and how significant it is. We are going to have to make some very difficult decisions as to where we go from here as the cost of restoring these remarkable ceilings is likely to be very considerable, and we will almost undoubtedly be dependent on receiving sizeable grants to enable us to do this.

Whatever the outcome, however, we are certainly learning a lot about St Mary’s Church that we didn’t know before.

Peter Smith, Churchwarden.