00:00Hello, my name is Gary Price and I am the Clerk of Works of Salisbury Cathedral.
00:07I've come in early today because my task for the day is to climb to the top of Salisbury
00:15Cathedral's spire and change the aircraft warning lights at the top of the spire.
00:22There's four of them.
00:24The south side has failed, the lights have been in there for six years so they've come
00:28to the end of their life, so I'm going to go up and replace all four.
00:33So we're all harnessed up, ready to go, we're just walking through the cloisters.
00:38I've got Richard here, he is going to be staining the weather door whilst we're up there and
00:45also giving us a hand to change the bulbs and remove one of the old wind speed meters.
00:53So, we're just going up the first spiral staircase, I'm huffing because I've got a heavy pack
01:04on and there's a hundred-odd steps and we're just going into the naive roof space here.
01:18Our staircase is getting even narrower now, I'll just show you where my feet are, so this
01:28is the narrowest staircase that we have.
01:32So, I'm at the top of the tower now, 332 steps from the ground or 220 feet and we've still
01:50got another 184 feet to go via ladders inside the spire.
02:04This is one of the ladders and we have fall arrest rope protection going all the way up
02:13on each ladder until we get to the top.
02:18So, I'm right at the top of the spire inside, I'm just ascending the final ladder, pulling
02:27up all my safety equipment and I will clip to this rope in a minute, I just want to give
02:32you a view from below.
02:38Do you want to reach around here mate?
02:48There?
02:49Yeah.
02:50Yeah.
02:55Wow, look at the view from here, it's amazing.
03:07So, you see the difference in stone here, this is our local stone, Chilmark, this is
03:13actually stone from Leicestershire I think, it's called Clipsham from the Isle of Rutland,
03:20this was up here in the 1950s, so this is the starting point, all the stone above was
03:26replaced between 1949 and 1951.
03:38So, we just opened this one up here and replaced it, Arthur's just done doing that one now,
03:58you see below me Richard's painting the weather door with linseed oil, just to give it a little
04:05bit more longevity.
04:06Yeah, we'll just take that off, can you keep coming up now mate?
04:15Windy up here Rich?
04:18Yeah.
04:19Lovely.
04:20Good.
04:21Here we are again.
04:22Yay!
04:23I'm glad I have all my three musketeers on the top of the spire.
04:30I'm coming in now.
04:33Yeah.
04:35Just looking at all the marks left by craftspeople in here, look 1990, there's 1951 there look,
04:46that was when they repaired the top 50 feet of the spire.
04:50Someone's had enough up there haven't they?
04:53Oh yeah, 1925.
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