NTS Braves the elements to protect St Kilda Kirk
‘A LOGISTICAL MARATHON:’ CONSERVATION TEAM BRAVES THE ELEMENTS TO PROTECT ST KILDA KIRK
National Trust for Scotland starts complex project to repair impacts of weather and time on historic Kirk
Project designed to take account of weather, wildlife and the risk of alien species
Work made possible with generous support from funders, including Historic Environment Scotland
Gales, rough seas, nesting birds and the risk of non-native species arriving are just a few of the challenges National Trust for Scotland staff and contractors have faced during work on a major project to conserve the St Kilda Kirk, as its 200th anniversary approaches.
Extensive repairs to the roof and the replacement of gutters and rhones are required as a first urgent phase of conservation, to make the Kirk and adjacent School watertight and windtight, in a location where peak winds can reach 144mph. Due to the St Kilda archipelago’s location in the North Atlantic, the islands face gales approximately 75 days a year, with the recent Climate Vulnerability Index assessment for St Kilda showing that storms are likely to become more frequent and more severe as a result of climate change.
With support from Historic Environment Scotland (HES) grant funding, the project to weatherproof and conserve the Kirk is being managed by the National Trust for Scotland, which cares for St Kilda, the UK’s only dual UNESCO World Heritage site. Specialist contractors, Laing’s Traditional Masonry, have been working on Hirta over the summer, making the building more resilient to the effects of climate change while retaining its historic character.
National Trust for Scotland starts complex project to repair impacts of weather and time on historic Kirk
Project designed to take account of weather, wildlife and the risk of alien species
Work made possible with generous support from funders, including Historic Environment Scotland
Gales, rough seas, nesting birds and the risk of non-native species arriving are just a few of the challenges National Trust for Scotland staff and contractors have faced during work on a major project to conserve the St Kilda Kirk, as its 200th anniversary approaches.
Extensive repairs to the roof and the replacement of gutters and rhones are required as a first urgent phase of conservation, to make the Kirk and adjacent School watertight and windtight, in a location where peak winds can reach 144mph. Due to the St Kilda archipelago’s location in the North Atlantic, the islands face gales approximately 75 days a year, with the recent Climate Vulnerability Index assessment for St Kilda showing that storms are likely to become more frequent and more severe as a result of climate change.
With support from Historic Environment Scotland (HES) grant funding, the project to weatherproof and conserve the Kirk is being managed by the National Trust for Scotland, which cares for St Kilda, the UK’s only dual UNESCO World Heritage site. Specialist contractors, Laing’s Traditional Masonry, have been working on Hirta over the summer, making the building more resilient to the effects of climate change while retaining its historic character.
Transcript
00:00So, one of the really exciting things that we've got happening this season on Ireland
00:09is that we're finally in a position where we can undertake some very much needed repair
00:13work to the kirk. It's suffered quite a lot with wind and weather damage, the usual attrition
00:20of age on a building, so what we're planning to do this summer is we're going to fully
00:24strip and re-slate the roof and do a lot of the external repair work to make the building
00:28wind and water tight again. The roof was actually last done quite recently in the 1970s
00:35by the Ministry of Defence, but it was previously repaired in the late 50s when the Trust acquired
00:43St Kilda. Every element that makes up the landscape of St Kilda contributes to the legibility
00:49of the story of people's life on the island. What survives that we manage, a large quantity
00:55of it is ruinous. We have some structures that have been roofed or that are in use but
01:00very few of them retain still a lot of the character that the St Kilda community would
01:06have known. The church and schoolroom are quite exceptional in that because those interiors
01:11have never been modernised or altered by very small touches, so when you go into the church
01:18you get the sense of the building as they would have experienced it and I think that's
01:22very powerful for the visitors. In terms of the island itself, any account you read
01:27will talk about the importance of faith to the St Kilda community and so I think making
01:32sure you're appropriately caring for and preserving their kirk is a very big part of our responsibility
01:39on the island. When you deal with a historic building and an old structure, the way that
01:49it was constructed originally and the tools that were used and the materials all contribute
01:54to the way that the building appears and the way that it ages and times move on and materials
02:00change but when you're then repairing a building like that it's very important that you try
02:05as far as possible to work with the same materials and therefore the same skills and having the
02:11craftspeople who are able to come out and work with that type of building is exceedingly
02:16important and the fewer of these buildings that survive the harder it then becomes to
02:21sustain and support that craft. So with a building like the church and a lot of the
02:25work we do on St Kilda, details down to the exact type of sand and lime mix that you use,
02:30the colour of the slates, the way that they're nailed, every last little detail is as far
02:36as we can, the way that it would have been done originally and that is the best and most
02:40appropriate way to maintain those buildings. I think the reason it's so important to use
02:48traditional methods on a building like this when it's a scheduled monument is just out of
02:56sympathy to the building, it needs to remain traditional throughout and not have any modern
03:05interferences so that the archaeology is correct going forward and you're still looking at
03:11the same building. We use more or less the same tools as they would have used when the
03:19various crafts were first done but just modern adaptations of these tools. The company I
03:26work for is great because you would expect these traditional crafts to be done by dusty
03:33old men in boiler suits but we've got a lot of youngsters that work for us, I'm actually
03:38one of the older ones now. I've worked for LTM for 11 years and I'm one of the old heads
03:45now but it wouldn't be the same in a lot of other traditional conservation companies,
03:52stonemasonry companies around Scotland. The craft is really dying out but we have a young
03:59squad so we've got a lot of hope for the future of traditional skills.
04:06St Kilda is a special place and I didn't really realise, I've worked on many islands with the company,
04:13I didn't realise how in touch with the culture of the people who used to live there you feel
04:23when you're here, you really feel like you're walking on top of their footsteps more so
04:28than other places I've been. It's a special place.
04:33Everything that you do at St Kilda requires a much longer lead in time and a lot more
04:38thought in terms of the logistics of getting the personnel and the materials on site because
04:44especially for a project of this magnitude where you're talking full height scaffolding
04:49and large quantities of heavy materials like slates, so we basically started at least 12
04:55months ago to plan the dates that we could get those deliveries out here on the landing
05:01craft runs and then to get the people on site and then it's just you're in the hands of
05:06fate with the weather beyond that.
05:09This is a really important project for us and it wouldn't be possible for us to do the
05:14repair work to our kirk without the help of the following funders.
05:17Thank you so much for your help. We hope to have our church back to its former glory very soon. Thank you.