Investigation has discovered that there doesn't appear to be much securing the rafters of the south aisle at St Nicolas' to the nave arcade, so we are having to stop using that particular bit of the church (a builder is about to come in an put some props in against the theoretical eventuality that the ceiling might come in) and we need to get our act together to apply for a Government funding stream especially for church roofs; I think I remember that about a dozen out of about fifty Lincolnshire churches got grants from an earlier round of applications for the money 'left over' in an under spent fund intended to repay VAT on repairs to historic fabric.
Different pictures and problems with the aisle have featured here before. The outward inclination of the south wall as the result of gradual pressure over the centuries isn't that strange (St Michael's south wall is also out of true) but it appears to have been dragging the roof timbers with it. Interestingly the way they are secured to each other (drawn here by out surveyor) appears to have been adapted at different times - the 1860s Fowler restoration would be one and the later insertion of a ceiling would be another but there will be complicated earlier history as well - so a later bolt appears to be what is holding an earlier construction in place at the moment.
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