2023 has been a year full of unexpected extra and urgent challenges at St Mary Magdalene, beyond which even our comprehensive building condition survey of 2022 had arms to reach. The year began with the discovery of potential dry rot growing in the timbers here, the summer brought news of our drainage being defective and in need of urgent repair, and then in the autumn some stone fell unexpectedly from the south side parapet onto the porch roof. As you might imagine, no matter how much forward planning our diligent PCC might be able to do, it’s very difficult to anticipate and prepare for exactly the number of things that might need urgent funding and repair across a year, and this year in particular has been a big one. Part of the PCC’s strategy for funding this season of needs for St Mary Magdalene is contingent on the rental of St David’s, which has also taken much longer than anticipated, and so as the year progressed and the jobs piled up, the questions about how we might fund the work moving forward became more and more pressing.

Here, entering stage left, is our extraordinary benefactor, Cloudesley. If you don’t know Cloudesley, I urge you to explore their website and find out more about their extraordinary work for the people and churches of Islington, and the local resident, Richard, who made it all possible over 500 years ago.

As we approach Christmas, and the end of a challenging year for the building of St Mary Magdalene, Cloudesley have granted us funding which will support us to tackle all three of our urgent problem areas: dry rot, drainage, and the south porch roof repairs. They have enabled us to continue this slow journey of rebuilding, they have demonstrated confidence in our ability to restore something beautiful here on Holloway Road, and they have helped us to get the ball rolling with practical action in 2024 to remedy our most urgent of challenges.

If you are coming to the Carols by Candlelight on Sunday 17th December, we cannot wait to welcome you into our beloved, beleaguered, St Mary Magdalene. And, if you join in with having a glass of mulled wine whilst you are with us whilst you are here, do take a moment to raise a toast to Cloudesley, and the grants that they have made to us in 2023. We are extremely grateful.

Much like the fabled ‘eureka’ moment Isaac Newton is famed to have had as he observed an apple fall from a tree one day, much of the last few weeks have been centred around gravity, and its inevitable pull towards the centre of the Earth.  Or downwards, as most of us earthbound people would know it.  Things that go up have work to do to stay up, because gravity is always inviting things from less dense to more dense: from the sky to the hot centre of our planet.  Whether it be an aeroplane, a building, or Elphaba, there is much work to be done in order to defy, and keep defying, gravity.

At some point in the last couple of months, maybe in response to inclement weather, maybe after standing tall for over 200 years, a piece of stone fell from the south side tower parapet, succumbing to the insistence of gravity, and crashing onto the porch roof below. Thank goodness it was ‘just’ a porch, though of course, that is not without its own challenges, as we now have a hole through to daylight in our south porch to be fixed.

Much work ensued - how and when did it happen? Why did it happen? Is it a sign that other stones are at risk? Is the building safe?

As always, our wonderful architect, Alex, helped us to navigate this new set of questions, putting us in touch with the wonderful folk at Stone Technical Services, who alongside caring for the domes and steeples of the great and good heritage buildings in London (St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Courts of Justice), agreed to come and check out the safety of stone here at St Mary Magdalene and make some recommendations for us.

This week, we’ve had the great pleasure of hosting Paul and Joe, specialist stonemasons and steeplejacks from Stone Technical Services, who have surveyed St Mary Magdalene, and thankfully, identified no other areas of concern around our tower. In order to complete their investigations, they expertly abseiled from the top of our tower; repeatedly scaling the stairs and ladders up, and then flying down on their ropes from different angles to assess the stonework on all four sides of the tower. Demonstrating perfectly the principle that coming down is much quicker and ‘easier’ (if abseiling from great height is considered ‘easier’) than getting back up again. That defying gravity is always hard work.

We don’t often have dogs in the church, and even more rarely do we get to have a dog in the church who is coming to work for us, but here is Pip, enjoying a break with Mary, after she’d spent the morning fulfilling her brief. Her brief? To sniff out dry rot. Apparently, specially trained dogs are much better equipped to detect the extent of dry rot than human eyes, and Pip came to reveal the next layer of challenge as we try to understand more about what it might mean to look after St Mary Magdalene.

To rewind, in the middle of February this year, our wonderful architect, Alex, called to say that Historic England reviewed the building condition survey he completed in 2022, and were concerned that there might be evidence of dry rot in some of the photographs taken inside the nave. Dry rot, for those of us who are less in the know about these things, is considered very concerning by those who are in the know. It’s a type of fungal infection found in wood that can spread relatively quickly, and causes the wood to decay from the inside out. It’s not something to be left alone for too long, otherwise the havoc it can wreak is substantial.

And so, Pip. Coming to us with her expert handler and a colleague, her team spent a morning quite literally sniffing out the evidence for dry rot at St Mary Magdalene. Whilst we await the full report, here are the headlines: yes, we do have some, no, it has not spread too far, and no, it does not mean that the building is not safe. Phew. Further updates to follow when Pip and her specialist nose are able to send us their full break down and give us a plan for how to take remediation forward.  Watch this space.  Thank goodness for Historic England, Alex’s swift action, and the specialist skills of Pip, the Rothound.