Adlingfleet is a beautiful building in a rural environment. It does suffer from areas of damp and work by SHU and the Diocese of Sheffield hopes to understand this. If the sources of water into the building can be verified then cost effective solutions can be explored to improve the internal environment.
What SHU have done
Our initial work has involved taking a detailed 3D scan and photographs of the inside and outside of the church. This will let us see where the damp areas are and help us to focus on how we shall continue
How you can get involved
We want to involve members of the parish, schools and other volunteers to help with the monitoring and get perhaps get involved with hands-on conservation.
The first part of this is to install and monitor external wooden dowels in the mortar joints. We are using the mortar joints so that we do not damage any of the stones. Mortar is a sacrificial component and a lot of this has decayed over the years and will need to be replaced.
Once the dowels are installed we will turn to citizen science to keep an eye on the dowels and contribute to the research. We will provide instructions on how to use a piece of equipment called a moisture meter to collect data on the readings over time. This data will be used to monitor the walls – including as repairs are done – to make sure that the building enjoys all the benefits we can provide.
Summaries of the data will be posted publicly and shared with the Diocese and conservators.
We have chosen this method because it will
- will preserve the integrity of the existing historic fabric, monitoring the mortar which is sacrificial in nature, and which is intended to be replaced
- will not require damage to the interior surface of the church
- will allow dowel monitoring with no need to access the church if locked
Each dowel will have a QR code attached to it to allow anyone to remove, monitor and replace the dowel.
Instructions for reading the dowel will be on the site where readings can be entered.