Notre Dame

Terrible scenes at Notre Dame, but it seems the majority of the stone structure will survive. Surely they will rebuild, like York Minster.

But an awful loss of heritage, history and art.

Neil

I've been following this on Twitter, terrible thing to happen, but entirely preventable. I can think of three recent fires involving 'national treasures' all caused by poor fire controls during restoration.

Windsor Castle fire, Charles Rennie Macintosh Art School in Glasgow and The Cutty Sark.

Surely they must be worth protecting with better fire precautions?

We were there only a couple of years ago, wonderful building, such a shame.

Alan

Hi, yes terrible shame. President Macron says together they can rebuild it. The aerial view they showed with the whole of the inside engulfed in flames, looked devastating.

Regards Nick.

And the National Motorcycle Museum at Beaulieu a few years ago. Started by a cigarette butt in a skip of air-con filters but not a sprinkler in sight.

Wasn't that the place in Birmingham, well between Birmingham and Coventry ?

Yes it's near to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Birmingham, as far as i know the fire spread through the roof ceiling voids, no fire breaks. They did a great job of restoring the burnt out classic motorcycles.

A little clarification for you Hopper, the National Mototorcycle museum is at Bickenhill near Birmingham and the National Motor Museum is at Beaulieu, the motorcycle one burnt down but is now near fully restored. Just had an entertaining 3 hour talk from Norman Hyde on his days as a development engineer for Triumph which seemed a good excuse to race Triumphs, they had great success for a low budget operation with Doug Hele leading the team.

Mike

He would be an interesting talk for sure. I read somewhere that Hele made a prototype Trident circa 1963 out of 2 500 twin motors. But got told nobody would buy multi cylinder bikes. Doh.

And yes my UK geography is sketchy at best. Still have trouble imagining somewhere 100 miles away is regarded as a different place. 😁

The contractors I used to work for were involved in quite a bit of church work, there was always a clause in the contract that said no lead burning after say 2.00pm which was meant to allow time for any small smouldering fire to be spotted while people were still on site. Did not say anything about use of angle grinders which could just as easily throw a spark that could start a fire several hours later.

This was one that we did a lot on, fan heater got it in the end. Has been refurbed as the brick and stone were sound. Stained glass and all the lead organ pipes were lost as well as the roof.

Even if money was no object, are there any workers with the skills? Under about 80 I mean.

Before the big footed structural guys get in there to shore it up, let the glaziers pick over the rubble.
Sort each fragment of glass into seperate boxes marked with the position found.
More importantly what depth or layer it was found in.
The drafts in a fire can suck fragile glass from one end of a church to the other.
We found that out after the York Minster fire

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According to the BBC this morning most of the interior fixtures, art etc had been removed before restoration, the money pledged is now upto 300 million euro's, structurally the stone building is said to be sound, it will rise again.

Martin P

Very sad to see such an iconic building in such distress.As has been said there have been a string of high profile fires during renovation and I can't understand why there are not people on site around the clock to reduce the risk to the buildings.

Doug

York Minster, was rebuilt, even its great window.

Can’t help thinking the money it will take to rebuild could be better spent elsewhere, its just a building when all’s said and done.

All on the same day the Titanic sank in 1912 , with the loss of 1700+ lives.

My thoughts entirely, totally preventable if the donkeys working on it had taken care in what they were doing!!!!

Tony

Hi, this issue was pointed out on the TV this morning, the response was that robots would be able to do many of the tasks, I guess they mean CNC machinery to cut and form timbers and whatever other materials that will be needed.

Regards Nick.