St Columb Minor Church - Restorations

Restorations

There have been two “restorations.” In 1795 the screen was cut up for floor boards and the nave and aisles filled with deal box pews for the farmers and a gallery put up at the West end for the labourers. The names of subscribers are painted on a board in the belfry. In 1840 the Lay Rector destroyed the ancient East window and inserted the present “churchy” window. Samples of the Victorian glass from this window hang in the North aisle. The Holy Water Stoup was removed about this time and built into the boundary wall to the East of the chancel.

In 1884 the building was in a deplorable state and another restoration was effected. Unfortunately the restorers did not understand this type of church which having been under a monastic body was all on one level. To make a series of steps to the altar the whole floor of the nave was lowered and the floor of the chancel so raised as to bury the bases of the pillars. The church was seated in pitch pine and a new roof put in. The carved rafters of the aisles were taken from the nave roof, and to make the church perfectly straight the chancel walls which inclined to the South were forced out of shape. The organ was formerly in a private house.