St Cosmas and St Damien's Church, Stretford
St Cosmas and St Damian's Church, Stretford, is a Grade I listed Anglican church under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The church, which is dedicated to the patron saints of physicians and surgeons, originates from the 12th century. Records show the church underwent restorations in 1875 and in 1922. It was declared redundant in 1972, and was vested in the Churches Conservation Trust in 1974.
Midland Conservation were commissioned to undertake repairs to the lime plasterwork to the ceiling of the church.
Once the internal scaffold was complete closer inspection of the structure of the building and ceiling slopes highlighted two previously unforeseen problems. Firstly, some of the plaster panels had been replaced with asbestos sheets during an earlier phase of restoration works. These needed to be removed by a licensed sub-contractor prior to works commencing. Secondly, it was noted that some of the structural timbers in the roof had begun to move apart. Following the advice of a Structural Engineer, we set about re-securing the identified members using stainless steel fixings, and installed 2 tie bars across the width of the church.
Having overcome these problems, work could begin on restoring the plasterwork to the ceiling. All missing or removed laths were replaced with oak laths fixed with stainless steel fixings. Onto the lath were applied 3 coats of lime plaster, the render coat, floating coat and finishing coat. Each coat was allowed to cure and harden before the application of the next.
Throughout the works the plasterers carefully monitored the temperature within the church to ensure the conditions were right for the lime plaster to cure correctly. Temporary heating was installed to ensure that a suitable temperature could be maintained during the winter period.
Once sufficiently cured, the new plaster work was finished with four coats of limewash.