Warming Up

From the vaguely theological and definitely pastoral we venture today into the realms of the severely practical. Back in the Old Days once an incumbent had been inducted into the real and legal possession of the temporalities of his [sic] benefice, he was responsible for it until such time as he left it, including any improvements or making good such dilapidations might have occurred to the parsonage house during the time he was there. The only thing he couldn't do was sell it. Such times are long past, and the diocese now takes a far closer interest in its properties, even if, some clergy find, they have to be persuaded actually to do anything practical.

The diocese has been telling me my boiler needs replacing since I moved in fifteen years ago, and has finally got round to it. I have been sceptical: the last time any change was made to the system was after I got help for a leaky pipe, when the visiting plumbers looked at the valves on my radiators, sucked in their breath, and informed me they would all have to be replaced to bring them up to modern standards. This was done, and a lovely silent heating/hot water system was changed in a trice into one that hummed, hissed and rattled no matter what was done to it, requiring careful management so I wasn't woken up at inconvenient hours. Now, I was warned that a new combi boiler would have to be mounted on an outside wall, requiring additional exposed ducting and pipework. At first I was horrified, thinking this meant vast industrial-size pipes leading round the kitchen, but was assured they would just be standard copper ones.

The actual work was done pretty efficiently even though the contractors discovered that a wall they had to take pipes through was in fact composed of plasterboard over about six inches of void space before they hit good Bargate stone. But when they were all gone and I turned everything on there was a noise like the thundering of mighty waters, as the Psalm says. Such noise persisted. I put this down to air in the system but bleeding my bedroom radiator for two hours didn't seem to stop it. The morning after a second contractors' visit to fix that, I got up to find there was no hot water at all. That fault turned out to be caused by a failed thermostat on the cylinder. Everything now seems to be both quiet and effective.

How expensive this would all have been I dread to think. I'm glad it's not been me paying for it. The new boiler sits unobtrusively on its wall, but the carcass of the old one is still in its cupboard. There is no getting it out, not least because the chaps were concerned there might be asbestos in it. You'd also have to take the cupboard apart. The works required my fridge-freezer to be moved, so I now have a kind of demarcated 'utility area' I didn't have before. It's as though the house is larger!

Keeping One's Council

The CEO of the local Council was only supposed to be a couple of minutes, but I was waiting for him for about twenty. Well, things come up, I know that. I have agreed to be 'Borough Dean', which is something our Bishop is very keen on: a point of contact between the local authority and the churches of the area, explaining the ways and concerns of the one to the other. When he did arrive, full of apologies and offers of coffee, the CEO made it gently clear that I was representing one of a variety of faith communities, albeit the vastly most numerous in sunny Surrey: that was quite understandable and a role I don't mind filling.

While waiting, I watched the receptionist field enquiries. She has to know who to get in touch with and broadly how the structure works to be able to help the people who turn up. Today, a Council tenant was pursuing a Gas Safety inspection on his property which was supposed to have taken place, but the plumber never turned up and he'd heard nothing back (the same happened to me the other day). The receptionist waited on the phone to someone for about ten minutes and then gave it to the man while she dealt with another gentleman who had some papers to hand to a Council officer who she also couldn't get on the phone (it turned out the officer was out at lunch - she came by later). There was also a woman with a non-native-English accent pursuing a housing enquiry with a man who I presumed was from the CAB or a housing charity or something - he was certainly acting as her advocate. She seemed to be about to be ejected from a friend's house and they were trying to secure her a place in a night shelter. They were shown into a meeting room to call either an advisor or a Council officer, I wasn't clear which. It was quite a tally for twenty minutes, though perhaps mid-day is a busy period. 

At Swanvale Halt church, we pray for aspects of our local community on a cyclical basis, including our local authorities, the elected members and staff. That's all very well, and I'm sure the Lord does something more than absolutely nothing with prayers like it. But watching the Council in action for just a few minutes on this very basic level adds some meat to those outline aspirations. How complex it all is - and how worthwhile the odd prayer seems. 

Work Done

For the first time, I realise, in over a month, there is no work pending on my house. I rose, did all my usual early-morning tasks, and set out for the Steeple House without a cheery artisan ringing the bell for access. The loft has been lagged, the porch reconstructed, the pillars holding up the back porch and the garage repaired, the roof tiles replaced, a ventilator put in the shower room and all the irrelevant ceiling grilles which allow free flow to waking wasps more than air blocked, and, as you can see, a little radiator installed in the downstairs toilet so that it will be a little less glacial in the winter months. It was redecorated before the radiator was put in, which is a curious way of going about things, but then I didn't ask for either to be done so I can't complain. I do find the plain white a little disappointing when so much of the rest of the house is plain white, so I may repaint it anyway. Not all the garage roof tiles were replaced ('I wanted to but they wouldn't let me', stressed the roofer, who I discovered a few days ago listening to Round The Horne which disposed me in his favour), so the roof now has a little steel grille around the bottom to catch any tiles that might still come adrift and crash into my neighbours' cars parked below. So the house is much tidier now, and I can't help wondering if I'm going to be evicted.

Building Sight

The cheeky, albeit slightly murky and obscured, grin of a Henry demonstrates that there's something going on in Swanvale Halt rectory. I know it isn't strictly a Henry, to judge by its name, but apart from that it looks exactly like one. What's happening is that the loft is being lagged with insulation, and there are a variety of other works the Diocese has decreed should be done. Rather the most dramatic is that the plasterboard along one wall in the Green Bedroom has become detached from the wall itself and needs to be replaced or it may, apparently, fall at any minute. That was where Ms Formerly Aldgate used to sleep. 

But there are other tasks on the list, such as the fixing of the garage roof - for 'garage', understand 'former stable' - and the relaying of the hip-tiles along its corner. A few weeks ago one of those fellows who come door-to-door offering gardening and small building services visited me and pointed out these were loose. So they were, and as they hover over a patch of ground outside the Rectory (and not part of its property) where people tend to park their cars I hastily arranged a little sign to warn folk that this might not be advisable for a while. Now some time before this, one of my colleagues (a former lawyer so you would assume he knew what he was talking about) maintained at Deanery Chapter that the Diocese were abandoning responsibility for anything at parsonages that wasn't physically attached to the parsonage house itself, so I assumed that repairing these tiles was my job, and asked a local builder to do it. In the manner of these things, they haven't even been to look at it yet, so I've relieved them of the responsibility in return for £10 put into the tea fund to recognise the admin they've already done. I do hope I won't have to reverse that instruction yet again.

Passed For Service

One of the woes revealed at last week's Deanery Chapter was that of the vicar of Wormton, whose boiler had been condemned by the gas safety engineer sent by the diocese. As there wouldn't be a replacement for a fortnight or more, and the temperatures were due to dip below -5, he was fortunate to have parents not far away from whom he could borrow a range of electric heaters to stand in. This became in itself another cause for complaint, as some years ago the diocese stopped doing full annual services on boilers in clergy houses and just authorised the bare legal minimum of making sure that they aren't belching out carbon monoxide. The Wormton machine had failed because a previous engineer had neglected to put a small component back properly, and had this been picked up on a subsequent service visit it might have survived another five years or more. The engineer came to me today, and much to my relief declared that my boiler could limp on another year. 

Another change that apparently slipped past without any fanfare is that the diocese has decided it's no longer responsible for the maintenance of any outbuildings at parsonages unless they are physically joined to the parsonage house itself. This might explain why nothing has ever been said, still less done, about the various faults identified a long time ago with my funny little garage that used to be a stable. A visiting fellow dropping off a card for his gardening/fencing/maintenance firm pointed out some corner tiles on it that he says are just about to slip off to disastrous effect, so I will have to look into that for myself, I fear. 

Building for the Future?

The house which for the foreseeable future is still only going to have me living in it has been the focus of attention of late, both official and unofficial. The latter came in the shape of a gentleman, and following him a lady who couldn't quite believe the information he gave her, so came to check for herself (I suspect it was the information I gave him that was wrong). They are compiling a survey of all the buildings in the area constructed from Bargate stone, a rather lovely honey-coloured sandstone widely used in Surrey where its main reserves lay. My house is one of these. It has quite a complicated history, beginning as a Victorian cottage, then doubling in size thanks to an extension which I thought was 1930s but is probably 1950s, and finally a second extension in the mid-90s which brought the kitchen to its current unnecessary size. To the rear of the older bit the stone courses are laid evenly and regularly like brick, but I hadn't noticed how even on the side of that portion they are all higgledy-piggledy like the more recent extension. Has that wall been taken down and refaced? It certainly has un-Victorian windows.

So much for the unofficial visits. Recently the diocese has become aware that it doesn't have a proper list of the property it owns and not unnaturally would like to rectify this, so a young man from a surveying company popped round before I was confined with covid to measure the house, a task which these days, notwithstanding my picture here, is done with lasers and cameras that measure things as they take photographs of them. Then yesterday a lady from an energy inspection firm called round to assess the house for an energy efficiency certificate. She didn't have a laser, or at least I didn't see her use one, but unlike the surveyor did need to go into the loft to check the insulation (she was quite pleased it has some, not that it seems to make a lot of difference to my chilly residence). I've always assumed the house was dreadfully inefficient energy-wise so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

A couple of days ago someone on the big LiberFaciorum holy wells group asked about the Churches selling off assets and yet not being able to keep churches open or holy wells nearby them kept up, in the context of lovely Gumfreston church in Pembrokeshire which I happened to have visited last October. I briefly described the Church of England's financial issues and the fact that historically it's been lumbered with a number of unwieldy properties which it makes perfect sense to offload - even if clergy are left living in less picturesque houses as a result, they ought to be a bit more practical. For instance the incumbent of the parish next to Swanvale Halt when I arrived rattled around (after being widowed) in a ten-bedroom nightmare of a house, built by an Edwardian Lord of the Manor keen that his rector should live in a style befitting a gentleman; there was a decorative plaster frieze around the sitting room. It was no surprise that when he retired the diocese sold it, rented a cottage for his successor, and then built a sensible four-bed house for hers.

It could be that the diocese's current survey is the prelude to a further rationalisation of property. I assume that my freehold tenure here applies to the house as well as the church and I cannot be turfed out without agreement any more than I can be sacked. I did suggest a long while ago that I could move somewhere smaller and less embarrassing to live in, but if that were indeed to happen, could I come back and check on the fish? They seem to be doing quite well at the moment.