Maintaining All Saints
In 1968, during the five yearly structural survey, it was found that an old drain had broken and water had saturated the clay surrounding the church foundations. This saturation had allowed the foundations to sink. Cracks in the masonry were appearing and the tower was leaning. All Saints, a church that had been standing in its present form for more than five hundred years, was in danger of collapse, because of a broken drain! Something needed to be done, and done quickly. Churches are renowned for having a perpetual fund raising effort in order to keep them running (All Saints is currently raising money to fund repairs to the nave roof), but this was a different order of magnitude. The District Council denied responsibility (despite it being a broken drain that had caused the problems in the first place) so it was left to the church and the local community to find the £45,000 needed to save the building. As Rev Paul Richardson put it (the current Team Rector of the White Horse Team Ministry): "In today's money, add another zero. This was a very significant amount of money". The money was borrowed to allow the work to get started as soon as possible (3rd December 1968).
The amount of work required was huge, not least, the construction of a new infant school, which had previously been housed what is now the church hall. The school was built in Eden Vale Road, and is still in use today. Large areas of the church floor were ripped up to allow access for 137 concrete piles to be driven into the ground, to a depth of 10 to 12 meters (35 to 40 feet). These acted as support for concrete collars, placed around the base of all the pillars to stabilise the structure. Due to funding constraints, the church floor was reinstated only as far as a flat concrete finish. To this day, the floor is still concrete (although hidden with a carpet, laid in memory of a departed parishioner).
The work took a little less than a year to complete, during which time the church couldn't be used. This caused major upheaval to the congregation and the many groups that used the church. The final act of the restoration was to test the foundations by ringing all the (immensely heavy) bells at once. This happened on the 1st November 1969 and indicated to an expectant congregation that All Saints would soon be "Open for Business". The first service in the refurbished church took place on the 30th November 1969. I can only imagine the effect of hearing the bells that day, inspiring...
2005 finds All Saints church in a generally good state of repair. The practice of five yearly structural surveys continues. The last survey, done in 2003, showed a clean bill of health, with the exception of the nave roof. This needs the woodworking to be replaced . Rev Richardson assures me that the fundraising is going well.