Archived News 2015

11 December 2015

Stoke Fleming Christmas Tree Festival

The bell ringers Christmas tree at the Festival this year depicted "The Tower Project", represented by scaffolding, bells, girders, tools, ladders and building workers!

 

Our tree was featured on BBC Spotlight on 11 Dec.

 

See Gallery for more photos

 

25 September 2015

New Weathervane

A new weathervane was paid for by Friends of St Peter's and installed by a working party composed of some of the bell ringers.

15 August 2015

Tower Open Day

An open day was held on 15 August, opened by Adam Hart-Davis.  Click here for more details.

3 August 2015

"Lightning Man"

We have found the original newspaper article about a lightning strike which hit the tower in 1879.  A young man who was winding the clock at the time fell off the platform and had to make his way down a long ladder in complete darkness.  Local Artist Gail Dorrington has painted a picture and created a display which brings the history back to life.  See under "History of St Peter's" for more information

17 July 2015

Message in a Bottle

During preliminary work for the renovation of the church tower in Stoke Fleming two time capsules were found hidden in the structure, one in a disused cupboard and another hanging from nails in a joist under the floor of the ringing chamber.


For more information about the bottles, click here

27 May 2015

We have just heard that our faculty petition to the Diocesan Advisory Council has been delayed because they are asking for more information about the proposed building works.  The church architect is now preparing a full building specification.  The DAC have, however, approved the work on the clock and the bells.

10 May 2015

Heritage Lottery Fund Bid

An application has been made to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the £40,000 shortfall in funds.  We expect to get a reply in about mid-July after which, if favourable, it should be possible to place orders for the work.

2 May 2015

Fundraising

Thanks to various fundraising initiatives in the Village, we have now raised about two-thirds of the estimated total of £110,000.  The Friends of St Peter’s have successfully raised £15,000 to cover all the work required on the clock, including re-gilding the face, and separately we have raised some £60,000 from grants, private donations and pledges. 

1 May 2015

New Bell-ringers

We welcome Bob and Chris who have recently started to learn to ring.  We hope they will be joining the regular band very soon.  For more information about bell-ringing, or you would like to learn to ring please contact the Tower Captain John Dietz on 01803 770515

24 April 2015

Faculty

Application for a Faculty (planning permission) went before a preliminary Diocesan Advisory Committee meeting. The next stage is a meeting on 15th May and hopefully approval on 5th June. There will then be a statutory period of 28 days while a public notice is displayed in the church. If all goes well we could have final approval by around 7th July.

15 April 2015

Bat Survey

The Bat Warden came to look for any evidence of bats inhabiting the tower, as this might have curtailed, or at least delayed, work taking place.  Fortunately no evidence was found.  Apparently bats don’t like draughts and our tower is nothing if not draughty.

9 February 2015

Today we put a ladder up on our new platform and started cutting out the bricks around some of the girders supporting the church roof so that the structural engineer can assess their strength. Some were not too bad but as you can see others need a bit more than a coat of paint.

30 January 2015

We are constructing a platform above the bells so that the structural engineer can put a ladder up to the steel girders which support the old wooden roof beams to check their condition and see what we need to do to maintain the integrity of the tower structure.