Birmingham church is crowing again, thanks to cockerel restoration

[THE CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS, Kings Norton, is located on the southern edge of Birmingham. The church building dates back in parts to the 13th century, with the spire being built between 1446 and 1475. It is listed Grade One by Historic England.

The original Norman building was demolished in the 14th century with a new nave, side aisles and chancel arch being built. Further changes were made in the 17th century, particularly to the roof structures. In 1846 the building became a parish church. Its most famous curate was the Rev W V Audry, author of the Railway Series of books featuring Thomas the Tank Engine.

The west tower and spire were added in the 15th century and, as the church is built on a hillock on the north side of the green, they form a notable landmark. In the early spring of last year the church undertook some repair work to the top of the spire that necessitated the removal of the weathervane. The parish decided to have the weathervane conserved while it was removed.

Following a funding allocation, the Historic Metalwork Conservation Company was contracted by the PCC to carry out the work last July. The weathervane was collected from the parish office and transferred to their workshop for treatment. It consisted of a large three-dimensional cockerel sitting on a large ball: both were made of copper and had been gilded. The gilded ball was generally in a fair condition, although much of the original gold leaf was missing – exposing the painted yellow base layer beneath.

The cockerel was in a poorer condition. Areas of gilding and paint were missing, exposing the underlying copper. That had oxidised, most evidently on the front edge of the neck and leading edges of the tail feathers as a result of the weather. There were a number of old riveted repairs to the tail, some filled dents on the body of the cockerel and its beak had been squashed in.

As the existing paint layers and gilding on the cockerel had mostly failed, they were all removed manually, cleaning back to the original metal surface. That revealed a number of corrosion holes in the copper metal, as well as old dents.

After cleaning, the cockerel was initially painted with two coats of an etch primer. Areas of damage were filled using a two-part polyester filler – including dents in the body and the bird’s comb, formed of two pieces of copper riveted together – to prevent future water ingress. Earlier riveted and soldered repairs were left as they were sound and formed part of the cockerel’s history. The repaired cockerel was protected with a coat of a high-quality alkyd oil-based primer followed by two coats of a golden yellow alkyd gloss finish to form a base layer for the new gilding.

The paint finish to the large ball was found to be well bonded to the copper surface. The surface was therefore lightly abraded with Scotchbrite pads to provide a key for new paint layers. The ball was brush-primed with two coats of an alkyd oil-based primer followed by two coats of a golden yellow alkyd gloss finish to form a base for re-gilding.

To finish, the cockerel and ball were re-gilded. Each was pre-coated with a layer of six-hour oil gold size and left until tacky and almost dry. Double thickness 23.5 carat gold leaf was applied to the surface of each part, which were lightly brushed to finish using a pony hair brush.

The conserved weathervane was returned to parish offices of St Nicholas’s church for restoring to the top of the spire by others. The repair and re-gilding of the cockerel weathervane should give it at least another 50 years before any further intervention is required. q

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