Architect - The Conservation Practice

Contractor - Ashby and Horner

Brief description of work carried out –

The Wren Church of St. Mary At Hill was badly damaged by fire in 1985, all that remained being the outer walls and plaster fragments of the existing ornate ceiling left amongst the debris. Cooks were asked to reinstate the ceiling in fibrous plaster copying the remaining pieces and photographs of the original ceiling. The ceiling consists of four semicircular barrelled ceilings intersecting with a central dome. The dome is panelled with each panel containing a patara. The pendentives formed by the intersection of the dome with the barrelled ceilings are decorated with the four seasons as were the original. The barrel vaulted ceilings were plastered in situ using a modern gypsum plaster on a metal lathing base. These had to be plastered to a high degree of accuracy to enable the surface fixing of the guilloche mouldings. The barrel vaulted sections are supported at their base by a decorative plaster frieze which continues around the outer walls and to both sides of the casing to the beams. At the Alter end is a decorative cartouche and two dormer windows with curved soffites and beaded arrises.