While the main building is believed to be 169 years old, it is generally in good condition, and we are ensuring excellent ‘care and maintenance’ for both the building and grounds.
We have now formally changed the name and associated address to ‘Old Stuckton Chapel’. We specifically chose the term ‘chapel’ as it both reflects its heritage (it was originally called a chapel), and reflects that it no longer has a full time congregation or minister.
The building has had limited use since the end of services over 10 years ago, other than briefly being used as an outdoor activities centre. We have extensively cleaned and cleared the inside – with a significant reduction in cobwebs!
Even though the building is empty (and nothing of value is left there!) we want to ensure it is not damaged. We have therefore significantly increased the security of the site and building, including remotely monitored professional high definition internal & external CCTV, intrusion detection, and further security measures.
It is also visited daily, not least as we are regularly working on maintenance activities!
Sadly the heating system is no longer usable, and thus has been disconnected.
We try to ventilate the space regularly.
The main hall of the chapel is pretty much as it was when services finished, although without the lovely soft seating!
We have removed unused equipment, such as the disused speakers, to minimise clutter on the walls. We have also removed items like old loose carpets, particularly from the gallery over looking the hall. Lots of vacuum cleaning was required after this!
One of the key challenges we learned from the structural survey was that the exterior walls were repointed with cement mortar at some point in the past, and this is holding water in the wall. A key job in the future will be raking out this cement and repointing with lime.
We are preserving as much of the history and heritage as possible.
One of our favourite examples is the sign to the right, that is inside the large front doors, and just above the entrance into the main chapel hall. As can be seen from the history, the raising of funds to gain this license to allow the full, formal, and official marriages in the church was a huge undertaking at the time.
The majority of the maintenance work is outside, where we are working hard to keep the chapelyard tidy and undertake improvement works, particularly including professional surgery for the important trees.
In addition to the maintenance of the grounds and building, we are undertaking preliminary activities in support of the future plans for the building. This has recently included consulting on the movement of a limited number of memorials, as can be explored in the associated document. Following this consultation, we are now planning and preparing for the moves and the creation of the two graveyard areas, inline with the wishes of those consulted.
There are a number of things we don’t understand or are struggling to identify as part of the site and its history, if you can help with any of these conundrums, we would hugely value your input.
While it is private property, the grounds are naturally open during daylight hours for visiting the memorials / graves, although please no dogs.
The building is fully secured, but if there is interest we would be happy to arrange some open days for people to see inside. If this is something that would interest you, please contact us.
You can keep up to date with our current activities through our progress blog.
To explore what comes next, have a look at the future plans.