In 2023 I was invited to become Inspecting Architect at Grade II* listed St Nicholas Church in the Old City of Bristol. As well as assisting the church team in developing their next phase of reordering proposals (which will focus on upgrades to entry and accessibility), CWa undertook a Quinquennial Inspection of the church fabric, and identified a suite of repair works that required attention.
This lead to the appointment of Sally Strachey Heritage Conservation (SSHC) rope-access team to undertake some high level surveying of the church spire – both inside and out. Whilst my church work over the years has given me a reasonable ‘head for heights’ I was happy to leave this work to James Preston and his team of professionals.
The tower and spire at St Nicholas are interesting for a number of reasons. The bell frame is made of steel and records suggest was installed after the war in the 1950s, when a number of surviving bells from several of the ‘lost churches’ of the old city were relocated to St Nicholas to create a hybrid peel of varying provenance.
Access to the bell frame became limited during the 1970s when the ringing chamber beneath the frame was filled with air handling plant as part of the church’s conversion into the City Archeology Museum. Much of this plant remains in situ today, despite being long since disused, as it is too challenging to dismantle and remove. Above the bell frame is the clock winding chamber, which local legend suggests is nationally significant as the only church clock in the UK with an hour, minute and second hand.
Above the winding chamber is the access to the tower parapet and a long view upwards to the interior of the 18thC spire. It was this tapering void that was scaled and inspected by James and the SSHC team, as visual inspection from the platforms below indicated the presence of some timber beams at high level, the condition of which required investigation. James’ team were able to confirm that the timber structure supported a lead lined deck which formed the waterproofing layer for the spire beneath the externally visible pierced vents at the spire’s mid-point. However the timber structure also revealed another intriguing discovery – a timber chest tucked away on a shelf (is there anything more exciting to find?)
Inside the chest were a series of enormous flags. This discovery stumped us at the time, as we had never seen any evidence of a flag pole on the tower or spire at St Nicholas, and even then the location of the chest midway up the spire without any adjacent hatches to the exterior compounded the mystery.
The riddle was subsequently solved when a member of the congregation uncovered the below photograph.
I am still not clear the purpose of the flags and their use in this side-hung orientation, but our best collective guess was that it related to the use of the river (by this time made tide-less by Brunel’s ‘floating’ harbour) as a navigable river for large boats. Perhaps the flags performed the function of a weather-vane illustrating the speed and direction of wind at high level above the rooftops that surrounded the busy harborside. We can only speculate! The chest has been safely relocated to ground level whilst works continue within the spire, and the flags will be donated to the City Museum at M Shed as an artefact of Bristol’s maritime heritage.
We continue to work with James in his new venture James Preston Conservation, and the church are fundraising in support of external repairs to the stonework of the spire and nave windows later in 2025. I will have to write another blog soon to share the exciting designs currently being developed for the medieval crypt!
Charlie