Wakefield Cathedral The Hairy Builder

Want to know about British history? You'd better get your hands dirty.

Don't bury your head in a guidebook.

Ask a brickie.

A chippy...

or a roofer.

Ever since I were a boy, I've had a passion for our past. So...

I'm going to apprentice myself to the oldest

masonry company in the country.

Mastering their crafts

and scraping away the secrets of Blighty's poshest piles.

From castles to cathedrals,

music halls to mansions,

palaces to public schools.

These aren't just buildings,

they're keys to opening up our past and bringing it back to life.

Today, I am in Wakefield, West Yorkshire,

helping to restore their spectacular Grade I listed cathedral.

I get the chance to unravel a piece of the cathedral's past

when a time capsule is discovered.

This is an incredible feeling.

I'll be discovering the link between this...

SHEEP BAAS

..and the cathedral.

And uncover what really lies beneath the floor.

Whoa!

It's really quite spooky.

In medieval times, Wakefield was known as the Merry City.

But these days, it's still got plenty to be cheerful about.

It boasts one of the world's oldest rugby league teams,

a navigable river and Yorkshire's tallest spire, sprouting a colossal

75 metres above today's magnificent building, Wakefield Cathedral.

There's been a place of worship on this site since medieval times.

Over hundreds of years, the building has grown and grown,

finally becoming a cathedral in 1888.

Everyone's had a go at renovating this West Yorkshire colossus.

The Normans, the Tudors, the Victorians and now,

Lord have mercy on it, it's my go!

The exact date this amazing cathedral stems back to is unknown.

But it is thought that there was probably a church on this site

as far back as Anglo-Saxon times.

What's quite special about Wakefield Cathedral

is its fascinating carvings,

wonderful collection of stained glass

and its impressive size.

Covering an area of around 10,000 square feet,

it draws visitors from near and far.

Today, it's in the midst of £1.6 million renovation which will

last just under 12 months.

Before meeting the builders, Jonathan Greener,

the dean of this stunning cathedral, is going

to enlighten me on this architectural masterpiece.

-Hello, Jonathan.

-Hello, nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Welcome to Wakefield.

-Thank you. Have I got the right place?

You know, I thought I was coming to a building site.

Well, this bit is the bit we did earlier.

Three years ago, we renewed the nave.

This cost 3.3 million.

Right.

Many of the cathedral's features were in danger of collapse

and desperately needed dragging into the 21st century.

Here we are in the heart of West Yorkshire, grimy,

because of coal mining for so long, so the walls were black.

-If you look on the wall up there...

-Right.

Just over here, you can see there's a black stone on the wall...

-Oh, gosh, yes.

-..which is the bit we left uncleaned

just as a reference.

-It was all that colour?

-It was that colour, so it was very dark.

And of course, originally, it would have been this colour,

-this wonderful honey colour.

-Absolutely.

There's a column over there that was 11th century,

but most of it's about 1450.

And what we've done is to uncover its sort of medieval glory.

It's going to take the cathedral, you know,

-into a vibrant living place for the next thousand years.

-Absolutely.

So, is there much more work to be done?

-Well, that screen is halfway down the cathedral.

-Really?

And then there's another half which is being done at the moment

-which, I think, part of what you're here to see.

-Fantastic.

-That's the building site.

-That's the building site.

This enormous restoration project requires...

The next stage of the renovation is to

concentrate on the rear of the cathedral.

And it's in the hands of the skilled builders from William Anelay

with foreman John Hutton presiding over every move.

-There is a lot going on here, John.

-Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to do.

-A lot to do, mate, yeah.

-Is that new?

-No, that's existing masonry that's been cleaned.

-Gosh, yes.

A lot of those pinnacles are loose.

We're having to do some repair works to them.

-So all this was that colour.

-How do you clean it?

It's a machine

that sucks the dirt and the stain back out.

But once in a while, builders can come across poor workmanship

and end up having to unpick someone else's work.

What's been going on here?

These walls here, they've been pointed,

some, possibly, 50 years ago in sand or cement, and it's so hard,

-we can't get the sand or cement out without damaging the stone.

-Right.

Which is a real shame.

So basically, these days, though, that wouldn't be allowed, would it?

No, you wouldn't be allowed to do that now

in restoration on a listed building.

Part of the renovation includes installing a new floor

in the main aisle as it was very uneven.

But in digging up the floor, they unearthed a small problem

when they unexpectedly came across a few coffins.

So as you can see, we are quite a bit lower than everywhere else.

-Found quite a lot of burials in this area.

-Right.

We found a number of coffins, quite a lot of bones.

So what do you do when you find a body?

Do you have it interred elsewhere or...?

That would depend upon what you're doing, really,

whether it's in the way of what you're doing or...

The hole in the ground, which is sort of barriered off down there,

there are definitely two lead coffins in there, possibly more.

So our structural engineer is looking at that as we speak.

About the detail of how to get over that,

because, obviously, you've got a hole in the ground.

Those coffins had nameplates on them as well.

And the archaeologists have recorded who they are.

And they've got records of who they who are in there as well.

And while the engineer investigates what to do,

archaeologist Ashley Jones has the fantastic job of getting

hands on with this historic building's past by

investigating what the builders found beneath the floor.

This must be like opening a box of chocolates for an archaeologist.

It is, it's amazing.

It's really good getting to work in a building like this.

Have you found anything interesting?

-We've gone down about half a metre...

-Yes?

And obviously, we're in a church so we find lots of bones.

Would these have been poor people who couldn't afford to be

-buried in the graveyard?

-No, not at all.

We're really close to the high altar where this would have been

-a very high status position to be buried in.

-Right.

It's a building job.

You need to have an archaeologist on site to make sure this stuff

is protected properly.

But, you know, there's a moral side as well

because I suppose what you are finding is people's relatives.

Absolutely, yes.

These are the ancestors of people living in Wakefield today,

so they deserve to be treated with respect, yeah.

It's quite spooky, really.

The builders also came across a Victorian coffin,

and I want to take a closer look.

Whoa!

It's really quite spooky.

-Yes, so...

-Can you work out who it is from that plate?

I'm afraid we can't. It's very difficult to read.

-It seems to say Mr J, I don't know what comes after that.

-Right.

And it's got the date, 1843, on it.

So it's quite late compared to some of the other burials we've had.

So the wood's rotted away, you've got the lead lining.

Yes, it's a lead coffin with a wooden lid

-laid on the top of it...

-Right.

-..and there would have been cloth as well.

-Gosh.

-So will this be left here, be reinterred?

-Absolutely, yeah.

They're going to cover it over with slabs and sand

and then they're going to

build from above the level of this coffin.

So that's good to know, that this Wakefield person'll stay

where they were intended to be put.

Yeah, they've paid to be put here and they're going to remain here.

Oh, good on you, Ashley.

-What's next?

-Well, we've excavated.

I think we need to fill in the holes.

Yes?

All these discoveries of coffins have left a few

holes in the floor, which means only one thing - they need filling in.

And it's not long before I'm getting my hands dirty.

Oh, this is great, now I feel like a proper builder.

The holes are filled in with limecrete,

a form of concrete which lets moisture through

and allows the floor to breathe so you don't get damp.

I think you've done this before.

Many moons ago, but not with limecrete. So what do we do now?

Just flatten it off with a shovel and then we'll tamp it down.

Ah, right, the bonker.

You know, it's nice to think, in my own small way,

that I've made some input into this historic building.

-Yeah, it'll be there for ever, that will.

-Right.

I'd better go and get another wagonload then, hadn't I?

No rest for the wicked.

Ah, morning, Your Worship.

It looks like cheap labour to me, which I approve of, really.

Oh, I might be rubbish, but I'm not cheap.

-Here's one of the things that they found during this dig.

-Really?

We're not quite sure what's in here.

It looks as though it might be a time capsule of some sort.

There's a piece of paper in a little glass vessel.

-We wondered if you fancied opening it for us?

-Are you sure?

Ashley, how old do you think this is?

I'm not really sure. It might be Victorian.

Looks like some Victorian vanity box, doesn't it?

-I think we'd better open it and find out.

-Oh, gosh.

This time capsule was unearthed

when the builders were digging the floor up in the south aisle.

-There we are.

-Look, here it comes.

-Oh, gosh.

This is an incredible feeling.

READS: 'The verger at that time was Fred Blackburn, 1931.' Wow, wow.

-Look at this!

-'These flag stones were laid

'on the 12th of August, 1934, by this team.

'J Young, R Petty, labourer, C Turner, labourer,

'A Terry, labourer.

'The firm was G Brooke and Sons, Wakefield.'

That's marvellous!

I think we should put that safe somewhere in the cathedral.

Absolutely.

It's another piece of history. You guys have got a great job.

-I'm really pleased about that.

-Yeah.

Well, that's a first for me.

Opening a time capsule that's over 80 years old. I'm chuffed.

But this fantastic time capsule isn't the only thing

I've got my hands on.

Above the altar in this striking cathedral

is the beautiful choir, the area where the choir and the clergy sit.

It's elaborately decorated with pinnacles, which are very fine

ornamental carvings of stone which embellish the church inside and out.

Dating from 1911, over the years they've broken off,

and it's the job of stonemason Matt to help bring them

back to their original splendour.

-As you can see, it's in disrepair.

-Gosh.

The process what I go through is getting all the little pieces,

-bits and pieces, putting them back together like a jigsaw.

-Yeah.

-And then pinning them using threaded bar and resin.

-Right.

If you want, you can pull this one out.

These small, intricate pieces which make up the pinnacles

are held together by pins.

And part of Matt's restoration of them

involves replacing the tiny pins with a stronger, tougher version.

-Is this a new pin or an old pin?

-It's an old pin.

It's phosphorus bronze.

So it would be the same principle as you're doing, really?

-Yes, as you can see, it's really small.

-It is, isn't it?

There's nothing to it.

And our modern-day one is going to be twice as long.

So I'll put that in and then glue it in.

As you can see, because it's just a piece of bronze,

it hasn't got a grip to hold the mortar,

whereas the new ones, we have threaded bar, so it clings on.

Holds the glue, yeah.

And like all good demonstrations, here's one he prepared earlier.

-Pop one on, shall we?

-Oh, ay, we'll do our best.

-So do we need to glue that in or...?

-Yes. It's a poxy resin.

-What happens if I drop it?

-You'll not drop it. I'm confident.

This one goes on this first one here.

It'll sit like that.

-With the glue in both sides and a little bit of mortar.

-Yeah.

How much restoration have you had to do on this piece?

On this piece, I haven't had to do any, it was just loose,

it was like a wobbly tooth.

Right then, time to attach this piece of art to the choir.

But I've only got one shot.

I have to place some of the adhesive onto the main

structure and some to the end of the pinnacle that I am attaching

and scrape off the excess.

I tell you what, Matt, I've iced a few cakes,

but never as delicate as this.

You'd be great, though, wouldn't you?

You could make wedding cakes and everything if things got hard.

Right, and we're going to put a little bit of lime mortar...

-Which, of course, is the correct mortar to use.

-Yeah.

We place some mortar onto the main structure of the choir,

but skill is the key as we only have about ten minutes until the

mortar goes off and we have to make sure that the pinnacle is in line.

-All right, so if you want to pop that on?

-Ahem. Right, which way?

-That's the front.

-That's the front.

-Yeah.

-That's perfect.

-It's perpendicular now. It's so intricate, isn't it?

It's so elaborate.

The more you look, though, I can see there's bits missing.

Hopefully, I'm going to be able to fix 90%, maybe 95% of them.

I tell you what, we're going to have to be less clumsy in the future.

-Yeah.

-Especially with that bit.

THEY LAUGH

-That will be on for ever, that bit will do.

-Brilliant.

'Let's hope so!'

Having a magnificent cathedral really does showcase

the prosperity this area must have experienced over the years.

But it was the Tudor period that was the golden era

for Wakefield as a whole.

The Tudors ruled England and Wales from 1485 to 1603.

It was an era of great naval innovation,

cultural renaissance and brutality.

Tudor landmarks are all over England,

from Hampton Court to the Chapel of Kings College Cambridge.

Towns like Wakefield were also thriving,

and their money came from the wool trade.

The wealthy wool merchants

would have spent their cash on spectacular houses which,

in the Tudor period, would have lined the streets of Wakefield.

Houses in Tudor times had a highly distinctive look,

with their white painted walls and black wooden frames,

a look that you can see in many mock Tudor suburbs to this day.

Sadly, most of Tudor Wakefield has gone now, but here's a little

reminder of the past, little being the operative word.

The Cow Shed is Grade II listed

and one of the last remaining Tudor buildings in Wakefield.

Historian John Whitaker

fills me in on why this building is so important.

This must have been the home of a very, very wealthy person.

-Oh, absolutely.

-So was there a lot of money in Wakefield, then?

There was.

Lots of places traded with the monasteries, so merchants were

coming to places like Wakefield, good links, and the ability

to make a lot of money buying the raw wool, selling it off.

This is one of only two ceilings of its type to

survive in the whole of Yorkshire.

Ceilings were the height of wealth and status, really,

in the Tudor period. There's lots to look at.

The crown above it, you can see, as well as the date, 1596,

-when it was put together.

-It tells it all, doesn't it?

-And the mermaids and dragons.

-Yes.

What's interesting is across West Yorkshire,

the ceilings that have survived, tell us that it

was one particular set of craftsmen that were making

a lot of the same sorts of ceilings, the same motifs on them.

I mean, what happened to all the Tudor buildings in Wakefield?

Well, sadly, they've been a victim

of the post-war changes to Wakefield,

the cityscape changed completely.

Many new buildings were put up.

But many of them were in pretty poor state of repair.

So they weren't really habitable, so they came down.

And, you know, we've lost something very rich

and something unique to Wakefield as well.

The fleur-de-lis has been a historic symbol of Wakefield

and on its coat of arms for over 600 years.

So I've got something with the fleur-de-lis on to show you here.

It's made of lead. This is a wool weight.

-Would been part of the wool trade in Wakefield.

-Right.

It made sure that everyone got a fair price for it,

so it's like you get today, it's a standardised weight.

Weights and measures,

I bet there was a few shavings of lead came off the bottom.

I would imagine so, yeah.

COCK CROWS

The thriving wool trade of Wakefield has long gone.

While woolly jumpers might not be as crucial to the town's wellbeing

as they once were, local resident Victoria Leach

is determined not to let it die out completely.

So you are keeping this great Wakefield tradition alive.

-Yes, resurrecting it, yes.

-Yes.

And this is your proper Wakefield wool.

-It is. This is off our sheep, yes.

-Looks like cotton wool.

-Yeah, it's very soft, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Smell it too.

-Poo.

-Smells of sheep.

Smells like those arran sweaters my granny used to knit us.

-You know?

-Yeah.

Victoria's flock is made up of 20 ewes, 22 lambs and two rams.

-You're the last wool producer in Wakefield.

-Yes, I believe I am, yes.

So which ones are the best for wool?

Well, I believe in the Mashams.

-They're beautiful. And this...

-The pearl one?

-Yes.

Is the wool very special?

-What's the quality like?

-It is very special.

As the years have gone by, I'm going to try and improve the texture

and quality of the wool.

You see, I always thought sheep were aloof and a bit stupid.

-But yours seem to be quite kind of attentive and friendly.

-They are.

-There's some friendly lovelies.

-I think they're very intelligent.

I can't help but notice, though, you haven't got a sheepdog.

-No, we haven't.

-How do you kind of corral them, you know?

-It's a bit tricky.

-Do you whistle?

-Food is always a good incentive.

-Yes.

We train them over time, really, that when they see a bag

and we are carrying a bag that they'll follow us.

So the sheep can recognise the bag?

Not only the bag, that's a dead giveaway,

they know there's food in that, they recognise that.

But they also recognise people's individual faces as well.

Well, time for me to put it to the test.

Right, for the purpose of this experiment,

I'm cunningly disguised as a Yorkshire sheep farmer. Ee by gum!

And what I've got, you see, is,

I've got a sack full of sheep feed on my back.

Now, they can't smell it. It's odourless, I believe.

But I should be able to act as a human sheep dog by the

simple recognition of this sack on my back.

Will it work? HE WHISTLES

Look what I've got, sheep! Follow me.

Here! Come here, sheepy.

Ohh!

Yay!

Meh! Come on!

-You don't need a dog, do you?

-No, not at all.

-SHEEP:

-Nah.

What do you mean, nah? Come on.

LAUGHS: Get off, you!

So what do you think, Victoria?

Do you think I have a future as a human sheep dog?

-You certainly have, yes. They seemed to follow you, didn't they?

-They do.

I'll take that as a compliment from a Yorkshire lass.

HE LAUGHS

'But I have to say,

'being a human sheep dog isn't as easy as it looks.'

SHEEP BAAS

Back at the cathedral, work on the restoration is well underway.

And foreman John Hutton is trying to bring some ledger stones to life.

These are the old ledger stones which were

laid in the floor in the north and south aisle.

They're not usable graves any more

and they've been used as paving.

Other than that, they would probably just

have been smashed up, I suppose.

Ledger stones are the flat stones placed over a grave inside a church.

Being part of the floor, they have been vulnerable to wear and tear.

The plan is to restore these ledger stones

and use them as paving for the cathedral's north aisle.

Salvaging old-age stoneware isn't always easy.

However, being a skilled craftsman,

he knows all the tricks of his trade.

We're steam cleaning them.

The steam clean obviously heats the water,

boils up to 150 degrees, and it uses the steam to clean it rather than

a pressure washer which would attack the surface and damage the surface.

And it's not long before Wakefield's canon, Tony Macpherson,

pops in to see how John is progressing.

-Morning, Tony.

-Morning, John, how's it going?

-Very good, thanks.

-It's cleaning up quite well, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

It's really amazing to see how it takes it off

just in one movement.

290 years old, that one.

-Looks like an excerpt from Jane Austen, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

-88!

-88, my word, that's a good innings.

-It's a good age for 1756.

The amazing thing is that we sort of assumed that many of these

were Victorian because we couldn't see the inscriptions.

But actually, this one is 1724 fifths it seems like.

They just couldn't make their mind up.

I suppose the Victorians put these down

-when they did the restoration in 1870.

-Apparently so.

And we're putting them down again,

so we'll have one aisle that reflects the history

and tradition of the cathedral

and the other isle which will be the more modern...

-That's right, yeah.

-That's great. Something from every generation.

Yeah.

And as John HUTTON makes a closer inspection,

one of the names on the ledger stone

is a bit close to home.

And we've got to find out whether it was 1724 or 1725.

We have, yeah, we'll have to look at the records for...

-John Hudson?

-Hudson? It's not John Hutton, is it?

-It's not John Hutton of Wakefield?

-John Hudson of Wakefield.

Died this life...

You thought for a minute you were walking on your own grave,

-didn't you?

-I did, actually, yeah. Just for a second I thought, "Hey."

Wouldn't that have been a strange coincidence, that, eh?

But it's not just been the main cathedral where alterations

and restorations are taking place.

The builders are also busy underground.

Beneath the floor of the cathedral is an Edwardian crypt, which

they've been renovating so it's a welcoming place that can be

opened to the public.

Right, Dave, this is the crypt.

Crypts aren't normally known for being the jolliest of places.

So what are you going to do with this?

-We are going to clean up the walls.

-Yes.

The floor's being cleaned and there's some replacement flooring.

-Yeah.

-And wherever you see the damage to the walls with damp,

we're going to cut the mortar joints out,

it's what they call descale the walls.

I could see the front's falling off the stones, isn't it?

It is, it's what's called delamination.

This is a retaining wall,

-the moisture comes to the back of the wall.

-Yeah.

And obviously working its way to the front and it's forcing,

basically, turning the stone to a crumble to the face.

It is, isn't it?

So, basically, what we do is we chip the face back to a solid state.

-Right.

-So it doesn't crumble any more.

So what's first on the agenda?

First on the agenda, Dave, is we're going to start

-and cut out some mortar joints...

-Right.

..down here and then we're going to follow by a bit of descaling.

'I think it might get a bit messy,

'but I'm left in Danny's capable hands.'

What I'll do is I'll start you off.

We'll put it on the joint.

'Danny's cutting out the old mortar joints

'so that the walls can be repointed

with a more traditional lime mortar.'

-You might want to start on this one here.

-Right.

'I'm just getting into my stride,

'but now I've hit some slate sticking out of the mortar.'

Yeah, you might have just caught a little bit of slate.

If it's a bit proud, we have to chisel it back a little bit.

We've got to suppose the slate's going to be waterproof, isn't it?

Yes, yes.

Right.

-It leaves a lovely finish, a lovely straight edge on it.

-Ay.

Which you don't obviously get with a hammer and chisel.

Not with me you don't, no. Quality.

-Hey, you've done a lovely job there.

-Thank you very much, thank you.

That's a metre. There's only another 3,000 to go. See ya!

-See you later.

-'Think I'll quit while I'm ahead.'

The cathedral's renovations may not be finished,

but that shouldn't mean we can't celebrate.

It isn't just a place of quiet reflection and prayer.

It's also a place of revelry and jubilation.

One of the main aims in the restoration of this cathedral

was to inject the buzz of 21st-century life,

and you could do a lot worse than this local group.

# My house in Budapest

# My, my hidden treasure chest

# Golden grand piano

# My beautiful Castillo

# You

# Ooh, you

# Ooh, I'd leave it all

# Give me one good reason

# Why I should never make a change

# Baby, if you hold me

# Then all of this will go away

# Ooh, you

# Ooh, I'd leave it all

# Ooh, you

# Ooh, I'd leave it all... #

Wakefield Cathedral's a holy hodgepodge of different time zones,

from Saxon to Victorian.

Now it's time for 21st-century men and women to make their voices

heard, and from where I'm sitting, it's pretty loud.

'Next time, I'm on Dartmoor in Devon, helping to restore this

'fascinating 20th-century building, the spectacular Castle Drogo.'

Fierce, isn't it?

'This castle roof could take a Wembley Stadium.'

If you was to flatten everything out,

it's roughly two football pitches in size.

'I travel back in rustic time.'

This is incredible.

'And it doesn't smell too good.'

It's like the inside of David Bellamy's beard, isn't it?

THEY LAUGH