Only Lead Is Good Enough

Our Plumbing Museum Workshop is now well established in the Gin (short for engine) building at the Amberley Craft Museum. Our main demonstrators are Phil Mead and Peter Cheesman and we are hoping to increase the number of our demonstrators. The highlight for the visitors is when they are pouring lead. They have been very busy since moving in and have been involved in 3 projects.

They have made a lead planter which was presented to the Amberley Museum to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The second is a lead planter for our church, St. Magnus the Martyr. It has been completed and is much admired by our visitors. I expect that it will be presented to St. Magnus later this year – watch the website for further details.

The final project is more practical. The Gin building was leaking with puddles on the floor after heavy rain. Who better could deal with this than reputable plumbers? Firstly Phil and Peter identified the cause, namely a lack of guttering. As this is an old building plastic just doesn’t cut the mustard. Only lead would do. Hence for the last few weeks our visitors have been admiring the sections of guttering, each with our coat of arms, and the down pipe. The section at the front of the building has now been put up. The photo below shows Eddie McCourt our new volunteer demonstrator enjoying a well- earned cup of tea next to the new downpipe.

The next project is restoration of an earlier piece. You will remember that we presented a magnificent lead planter to her Majesty to celebrate her diamond jubilee. This now sits proudly and magnificently at Sandringham. We also made a near copy (you don’t duplicate a gift to Her Majesty so there is a difference from the original) which resided at Singleton, where we have an unmanned static display. However it has not been well looked after and has suffered significant vandalism. It is being moved to Amberley for repair.

There is also another large and prestigious project in the offing so keep looking out for details.