The roof of a church in Camberwell came crashing down last month due to ‘dodgy workmanship’ from more than 150 years ago.
Cottage Green Chapel is an 180-year-old Baptist church on Cottage Green, between Southampton Way and Wells Way.
Last month Haydon Murr, who runs the church with his wife Alison, arrived one morning to discover that one of the wooden supports holding up the tile roof of Cottage Green Chapel had snapped – causing the entire ceiling to come crashing down.
“I eventually managed to push my way in and realised the ceiling was collapsing. Long story short, one of the major roof trusses which support the slate roof had just snapped off and fallen through.”
“Initially I thought it was damp,” the church leader said – before discovering dodgy Victorian craftsmanship was to blame.
“Two of the trusses were added a few years after the rest of the church was built, and for some reason they’re narrower than the rest,” he explained.
“Then they put a bolt in at the angle that is not dead centre.”
He added: “It’s incredible it’s lasted the length of time it has.
“The other one that’s narrow is also cracking in the same way.”
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Haydon said the disaster was “definitely a shock. We have got plans to redevelop – but not on this time scale.”
Currently, the roof is being hoisted up while they wait for the surveyors to come over and assess the extent of the damage.
“The repair of the roof is going to cost hundreds of thousands. It may be that it can’t be hoisted up and that the entire timber substructure will need to be replaced.”
He said that because he believes the craftsmanship is what caused the roof to collapse, he fears they probably won’t be able to get it covered by insurance – but they’ll hopefully be able to get it for some of the secondary damage.
They plan to launch a fundraiser in the coming weeks once they know what the next steps are to help them raise money to repair the roof.
