Moving a church font.

We were asked to move a font in a church at a place called Austwick, North Yorkshire. The font was being moved because they had decided to make better use of the area where the font was situated. This was going to be a very testing job but we were up for the challenge, we ordered in a genie lift to help with moving the font because of the sheer size and weight.

Here is the wonderful ancient stone font, the way we will move this font is to split the font and stem away from the base. A very delicate job of using fine hacksaw blades to cut through the joint holding it together and hoping its not doweled with iron pins.

Once the joint had been cut we made a square frame to enable us to lift the font and stem with some heavy lifting straps. With the genie lift in position it was time to start winding up the handles to lift this beast of stone away from the base.

Just need to get it down to the next level and move over to where it will be relocated.

Next job is to lift the base off its foundation and take outside to reshape, the light in the picture is sat on a step which is part of the base. Over the years the step has become a trip hazard, so it will be cut off and made to look like the other sides.

Ready for reshaping.

The base is now shaped and installed to its new location, complete with drainage pipe. Next task is to lift the font and stem onto the base and connect the drainage pipe (easier said than done).

Well its up and nearly on, in this picture we are just connecting the drainage pipe and putting a small bed of lime mortar on to fix it together.

Its down and done, just a small bit of cleaning and pointing up the joints. Then its just to take the straps off and dismantle the frame.

Job Complete, just need the joiners to sort the floor out within the next few days.

Thanks for reading.