engstu

Thanks for the welcome apelles!

There are now more photos up on Boards.ie and an update on what’s happening at the moment – pretty much just securing the structure to allow investigations to proceed.

@Fearg wrote:

Can anyone suggest a decent architect the Bishop could work with

I can’t suggest an architect, but I was having a look around on the internet (doing a bit of procrastination instead of studying!) and I came across the restoration of the London Opera House at Convent Garden. They used a pretty novel technique of stone clad steel columns – not the usual method of building a steel frame of UC’s and UB’s and then fixing stone panels to the steel UC’s. The method used can be seen in the the link below.

http://www.drillandsaw.org.uk/pages/casestudies/vol1issue1/royalopera.htm

Judging by the damage in the pictures, the most economical and quickest way of restoring St.Mels may now be to just demolish the internal rows of columns and re-construct them a similar method as was used in the London Opera House – that way the arches & walls over the columns and the main roof could also be constructed of steel – which due to its properties and ability to be fire proofed, it would preform better in a fire!

Any thoughts?