The Church Wall – MORE progress

This article has been updated

The rebuilding of the Good Shepherd Church wall is making good progress. Mohammed and Stephen (main picture) have begun laying the reclaimed bricks from the Wantage Road end.

They have used the bricks recovered when the old wall was demolished for the bottom courses. The bricks visible above ground are part of a horde of 7000 old bricks of the same vintage as the originals.

Lintels have been put in place to bridge over the tree roots (middle photo).

It doesn’t seem likely the wall will be finished in time for Christmas, but should be complete in the first month or two of 2026.

Many local people contributed to the crowd-funding appeal which is partly paying for the rebuild.

Work starts on rebuilding the Good Shepherd Church wall

This is Mohammad, who has has started work taking down the Good Shepherd Church wall on Wantage Road, before rebuilding it.

He is carefully saving all the old bricks which can be reused, but many more will be needed to completely rebuild the wall.

James Murdoch, the Church Warden, wrote here recently that a local builder John Walsh had come up with a competitive proposal for the work which involved several cost-saving measures.

The work is being funded partly by a crowd-funding campaign which was supported by the Lee Manor Society.