Building Name

Restoration of roof Witton Church Northwich Cheshire

Date
1930 - 1931
District/Town
Witton, Northwich
County/Country
Cheshire, England
Work
Restoration
Contractor
C E Bebbington

THE ROOF OF A CHESHIRE CHURCH. - Witton church in Northwich has a roof of some beauty which was found last year to show new signs of dangerous condition. The timber was occupied in some places by wood-borers, and several of the main members were rotting away over the wooden corbels - also rotten which supported them. The new reparation was undertaken in October by Mr C E Bebbington, under the direction of Mr F P Oakley. It is now complete. Visitors will find the old oak redressed in gold leaf and many colours. It is the chief material glory of the church and an exceptionally fine piece of work. The roof of Witton church has been a subject of some discussion. Legend says it was brought to Northwich in the early part of the sixteenth century from Norton priory on the dissolution of that establishment. It is a framed structure of ten bays, each bay divided into eighteen wooden squares, and each square additionally divided by diagonal members, these triangular divisions are filled in by large triangular slabs of oak, a method not altogether usual in roofs of this sort, and every intersection of timber in the roof is ornamented by a boss. Each of the cross beams is built up from a small rib at the bottom to a large spandrel at the top where the structure of the beam meets the roof. The main tie-beams which span the church are single pieces of oak of immense size. Each one is 24 feet long and 21 inches deep and 14 inches thick, and each face of the beam, with its ornamental additions above and below, was decorated by coloured designs whose outline was cut into the wood, and by bosses not only on the lower edge but on the flat of the face and its meeting with the roof. Some of the bosses at important intersections are large and handsome. One particularly fine one over the chancel is composed of intersecting oak leaves and stems. In another a man's face peers into the nave from a cage of simple tracery. Two others represent fishermen's creels, and some carry the initials of the important families of the neighbourhood. The invention of the original carpenters was substantial, and Mr Bebbington, who has been doing the foreman carpenter's work and replacing broken and missing bosses confesses that he has been hard put to make them good with due variety in the time at his disposal. He has carved some hundreds of oak leaves as well. Under the dirt and dust Mr Oakley found remnants of the original colours which have now been replaced. It may be imagined that the effect of the red, the blue, and the gold is rich.

Various discoveries have been made by the repairers during the work. The date 1538 is cut into one of the oak slabs in the roof, and with it is found a carpenter's mark which is found elsewhere on the wood. This suggests a date for the erection of the roof at within, whether it came from Norton or not. In the architect's view the repair of the venerable roof would have been impossible if the restorers of sixty years ago had not pinned the whole structure. A new roof of very strong construction was then put over the old one, and heavy steel bars were dropped from the new timber and bolted through the old, so that the old was virtually suspended. Otherwise the rottenness of the ends of the old beams and the wooden corbels which supported them would undoubtedly have brought the roof down on to the worshippers. The wood has now been sprayed with an insecticide and filled in wherever possible with a binding composition. Other rotten timbers have been pinned to sound wood from above, and the whole of it is being protected by waterproof material.

Reference           Manchester Guardian 19 March 1931 page 4 with photo