Herewith photograph of turret that fell apart earlier this year. It is now thought that the stairway turret was added to the tower at the same time as the Deanery Tower was built, i.e. in 1495. The turret was built of brickwork, with a cladding of flint to match the rest of the tower. BUT the cladding wasn't properly pinned on, so after five hundred years or so, the new bits fell apart. They didn't build to last as long in the 1490s as they had done in the 1200s when the main body of the tower was built. But the chap who's done the repairs this time thinks it will now be alright for another few centuries. Must go and fix a wheel lock before retiring, so - Goodnight all.
8 comments:
Smart as a new pin!
Speakin' of which... what do they pin flint to brickwork with these days? I'd guess at stainless steel spikes, but I thought they used sturdy elm put-logging before the Orange-men sent us their Dutch-Elm disease!
Hi Carl. I think your guess about present day pinning is probably correct. I don't know if wooden pins were ever used. The putlog holes you see in stonework were left to put wooden poles into in case scaffolding was ever needed for maintenance to the stonework. You must remember that in the 1490s
brickwork was experimental, and where we used it to build a new staircase turret, it would have looked odd against a stone church tower, so the flint cladding on brickwork would have been cosmetic, experimental, and probably almost unique, until more was learned about the materials being used. I should think.
Cheers, Mike.
Pretty succesful experimentation in modern terms of endurance!.
Post Scriptum:
Please, if you will Mike, remind me again of the defining differences between a wheel-lock, a snaphaunce and a miquelet? I hardly need to ask if your ministrations to the wheel-lock went well!
Hi Crowbard. All three are types of spark producing gun lock (I know you are aware of that, Crowbard, but not all bloggers are). The wheel lock is the first type of spark producing gun lock, and I can best describe it as similar to an enlarged cigarette lighter which has to be wound up. The snaphaunce is an early type of flintlock, but differs in that, instead of a combined pan cover and steel, it has a separate sliding pan cover and steel, and therefore usually has no half cock position, as it is safe until the separate steel is pulled back into the firing position; and the miquelet is a Spanish type of flintlock with the large mainspring on the outside of the lock plate. The usual reason given for this is that only fairly poor quality flints are found in the Iberian peninsular, which need a strong spring to make them work; if a large enough spring is used inside the lock plate the sheer size of it would entail a very large cavity, thus weakening the stock. Not too sure about that reasoning, but it's probably how the miquelet lock started. Hope that's all clear.
Cheers, Mike.
P.s. Yes thanks, Carl. It's now producing decent sparks again.
Regards, Mike.
It's a gorgeous tower and dare I say it, reminds me a wee bit of one I saw in Sweden.
Yes, there are some lovely early churches in Sweden. I think it's probably the broach spire overlapping the tower, that gives our church that slightly North european look.
Cheer, Mike.
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