Ludlow church selling off its masonry

Pinnacles and stonework from the top of St Laurence's Church in Ludlow will be sold off to the highest bidders at auction on Saturday.

The stonework has come up for sale after the church spent £400,000 on urgent roof repairs and work to preserve 16 crumbling stone pinnacles on top of the building.

Rather than throw the weathered stone away, the church has decided to sell off the cast-offs to raise money for further work as part of its £4.8 million Vision Project to modernise and conserve the ancient building.

The pieces up for sale range from one complete pinnacle from the 1800s, to new parts carved for the recent restoration that were not used.

Shaun Ward, clerk of works for the Vision Project, which was launched in 2009, said: "We are selling 46 pieces, some are from 1950, most are from 1890, and there are a couple of new pieces.

"The auction will be at the church on Saturday at 3pm, but people can come in and put in reserve bids before if they want to."

He added: "Someone came in and said he liked one of the new pieces and I said 'make me an offer' and he said £50. I said, 'Well it cost £500 to make, so I hope we're going to get more for it than that.'

"There are a couple of pieces worth about £50 there, but a lot of them are worth considerably more."

The masonry is mostly sandstone, made by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1890, Chatwin in 1950, Rod Robinson in 1990 and James Wade in the last couple of years.

Nearly £700,000 has been spent since the start of the Vision Project.