Over its life, St Wilfrid’s church was probably a very cold place in which to be, or to worship. Box pews were installed in the 16th century as a crude form of keeping warm.
If you didn’t bring your own form of heating or extra clothing with you, such as heated stones or fur blankets, you would certainly suffer in the depths of winter!
Various forms of heating have been used in the church in more recent years. The first recorded heating was stoves around the church, donated by the Sale family in the late Victorian era.
In latter years, a gas-fired boiler was situated in an underground room to the north-east of the church. This boiler heated water warming the church via radiators and large bore pipes that ran around the length and breadth of the building. These pipes caused a major health and safety hazard as they were a constant cause of trips and falls.
The Transformation has allowed a completely different approach to be taken – we have installed electric heating under the suspended floor. This will keep the church at a comfortable ambient temperature all-year-round.
Once the old floor had been completely stripped out, a new, suspended floor was built with all of the electrical cables hidden beneath it. Under the finished floor layer, a sheet of electrical underfloor heating was laid across the whole of the building. The intention is to keep the church at a constant temperature that will be comfortable for everyone all-year-round.
