Week beginning 28th September work was started and completed on the re-routing of the electrical supply to the Parish Hall.

The supply previously entered the Hall under the old barn door on the east side of the building and was routed under the floor to the meter and consumer units on in the cupboard adjacent to the Hall door on the west side of the building.

To complete the work on the floor and installation of the underfloor heating the cable had to be moved. The new location for the meter is in the storeroom. As all the Hall electrical circuits currently are fed from the consumer unit in the cupboard in the Hall, and as the work to installing new circuits will not commence until February 2016, a temporary power supply has been laid from the new location of the meter to the existing consumer units.

To relocate the cable required a trench to be dug in ‘Campie’s yard’ and we are extremely grateful to Campie and Barnabas for allowing this to happen in support of the project. The trench was dug on Monday. To gain access to the storeroom from the trench required an access hole to be dug in the floor of the storeroom and under the storeroom external wall. This was completed on Tuesday by Ron Moore and Steve Baber.

On Thursday Dart Electrics were at the Hall to undertake the necessary electrical work in installing the equipment and cable to connect the new power source to the existing consumer units. Western Power were at the Hall and moved the cable to the new location and fitted the meter. By the end of the day on Thursday this part of the work was completed and the electric services and equipment in the Hall were tested and functioned.

Friday saw the backfilling of the trench.

Photographs of the work

More photos on our Picasa slideshow

Sir Nick Harvey MP for North Devon visited East Worlington Parish Hall  to learn about the Heritage Project and the conservation of the Parish Hall. He also visited East Worlington Primary School to discuss essential building works on the old school house.

Both the Parish Hall and the school house are Grade II listed buildings which means that there are requirements on how building works for both maintenance and improvements are carried out. Sir Nick was interested in how both the Heritage Project Group and the School Directors manage to balance the work required to maintain the buildings with their daily use. 

At the meeting were Mike Johnson, Executive Headteacher at Chulmleigh Academy Trust (CAT), Tracy Dodd, Deputy Executive Head (Primary) (CAT), Terry Pullen, Estates Manager (CAT), and Steve Baber, Liz Guppy, Lorna Manton, Gavin Manton and Martin Bond, all members of the community and deeply involved in delivering the Heritage Project. 

The meeting started with a general discussion while viewing the outside of the Parish Hall followed by a light lunch of sandwiches and tea/coffee. Once the school lessons had stopped for their lunch break the meeting moved to the school and examined the current state of the school house which is undergoing extensive repair work: as can be seen from the selection of photos taken during the visit.

 

 

On Friday 27th February 2015 Steve Baber and the Heritage Project Group hosted an evening to officially launch the Heritage Project.

The evening started with an informal chat and refreshments followed by gave a formal presentation by Steve (see slideshow below) of the Heritage Project its reason d’etre, current aims and ongoing activities.

The main points put forward in the presentation were:

Over the last couple of years a significant amount of effort has gone into planning and funding a major refurbishment of the hall. The planned activities are to remove the existing floor and replace with a new sprung wooden floor with underfloor heating, remove the suspended ceiling to expose the architecturally interesting roof beams, add additional insulation between the rafters, upgrade the electrics and lighting, and have the roof re-thatched. 

Current funding for the project stands at £130,050 comprising £21,00 raised by our own events and donations and the remainder from 10 different grant sources. The larger grant issuing bodies that have contributed to the project are acknowledged in the footer of each page on this web site. Project costs are predicted to be around £145,000 which is a £15,000 increase on the initial costs due to the fact we are now considering using an Air Source Heat Pump for the heating instead of the original plan for an Oil Fired boiler.

After the presentation everyone tucked into a cheese and salad buffet, with more refreshments, and general discussion with members of the Heritage project Group. A follow on Q&A session was short with no major objections put forward to the proposed plans and general acceptance of the unavoidable disruption to hall activities while the work was ongoing. The upgrade work is currently planned for June-August 2015 using the school summer break to minimise the impact on the community.

Overall people seemed interested and pleased with the proposed upgrade.

 Slideshow

Slides will change automatically after 10 seconds. Hover the mouse over the show to pause, and click to advance to the next slide.

Images from the event