MatthewC
Member
- Messages
- 1,733
- Location
- Central/South England
I had an interesting "first-time" event this week - I broke into the Grade 1 listed church opposite my house...
From my front gate, I happened to see someone fiddling with the north door, and went to investigate. It turned out to be someone I knew, and he was looking quite shocked, possibly because it was 11.30 and he knew that there was a wedding at 2.30. Apparently he had just locked the door and set the latch, and the external ring handle to operate the (very stiff) latch had then come off in his hand! The door does not fit very well and so the trick to close is to pull the door smartly towards yourself and turn the handle at the same time to set the latch (which is a fine piece of blacksmithing).
Now a locksmith is probably no help at all when the lock works and the door is physically stuck, so we tried ourselves to operate the latch with some stiff wire, but with no success. My friend went to get the rector's permission to break in at the south door which we guessed was a better bet for forced entry, as this is a double pair of doors with one held top and bottom by bolts, and the other has a horizontal bolt plus a latch and old key. Judicious use of my crowbar prised the door open far enough to get a hacksaw blade in, and we managed to cut the (modern) horizontal bolt in about 15 minutes. Then before trying the same on the old mortise we just lifted the latch and gave a large kick to the door which flew open without further damage. Then I just had to replace the bolt and sort out the mechanism for the latch on the north door - it just needed a new locking washer to hold the nut on the end of the spindle for the ring handle.
The wedding ceremony went off without problem, and the happy couple departed in a beautiful white 1959 VW minibus :mrgreen:
Matthew
http://houseintheenchantedforest.blogspot.com/
From my front gate, I happened to see someone fiddling with the north door, and went to investigate. It turned out to be someone I knew, and he was looking quite shocked, possibly because it was 11.30 and he knew that there was a wedding at 2.30. Apparently he had just locked the door and set the latch, and the external ring handle to operate the (very stiff) latch had then come off in his hand! The door does not fit very well and so the trick to close is to pull the door smartly towards yourself and turn the handle at the same time to set the latch (which is a fine piece of blacksmithing).
Now a locksmith is probably no help at all when the lock works and the door is physically stuck, so we tried ourselves to operate the latch with some stiff wire, but with no success. My friend went to get the rector's permission to break in at the south door which we guessed was a better bet for forced entry, as this is a double pair of doors with one held top and bottom by bolts, and the other has a horizontal bolt plus a latch and old key. Judicious use of my crowbar prised the door open far enough to get a hacksaw blade in, and we managed to cut the (modern) horizontal bolt in about 15 minutes. Then before trying the same on the old mortise we just lifted the latch and gave a large kick to the door which flew open without further damage. Then I just had to replace the bolt and sort out the mechanism for the latch on the north door - it just needed a new locking washer to hold the nut on the end of the spindle for the ring handle.
The wedding ceremony went off without problem, and the happy couple departed in a beautiful white 1959 VW minibus :mrgreen:
Matthew
http://houseintheenchantedforest.blogspot.com/
