A walk around St Cuthbert's House

Around the outside

St Cuthbert's House sits prominently on the Main Street (which is a relative term. It's only used by the local residents...)

The old church didn’t have a lot of land, and so most of the outside area has needed to be given over to hard-standing, primarily for car parking, at the behest of the planners. Although, it is possible to use this area to play a game, or sit out and enjoy a glass of wine on a summer evening… It’s enclosed by a fence which provides some privacy.

It took us several days to hack off the horrid render which covered the outside walls of the building. When we did, we found some rather attractive, if rough, stone – which we decided not to cover up again. Although it did take a very long time to rake those joints and point them again…

At the front there are two entrance vestibules, one of which provides the ‘main’ entrance if you’re not coming in via the door from the car park. These were added about 30 years after the church was built, and were built in brick rather than stone. So we've left them covered.

The original windows in the vestibules have been expertly rebuilt in their original casings. And so have the enormous great windows which run almost the full length of the front elevation – quite a task!

The old wrought-iron railings and gates were in pretty bad shape, but they’ve been shot-blasted, repaired and galvanised by a local iron-worker. We also managed to salvage some of the cast iron downpipes and guttering, and it’s amazing to see them looking so good with a few coats of paint.

One of the biggest debates with the planners concerned the paint finish to be applied to the previously rather drab cement-rendered face of the church. Then we discovered that the render wasn't actually attached to the stone any more, but was preparing itself to drop on someone's head - which gave us that perfect reason to remove the render, and expose the stone face of the church. Although this was very hard and difficult work, we're much happier to see the stone again, than a painted cement render!