• 2 months ago
Video shows a lightbulb being changed - 400FT in the air on top of a cathedral spire.

Gary Price climbed the outside of the UK's tallest church spire to change its lightbulbs.

Clerk of Works at Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire, Gary ascended the 404ft spire to change the four aircraft warning lights after the six-year-old bulbs on the south side failed.

After strapping into harnesses, Gary and helping hand Richard climbed 332 steps to the roof, before climbing a series of medieval ladders to reach the "weather door" - a small opening leading out to the dizzying drop.

The final 30-ft stretch required Gary to climb on the outside of the spire, using metal rungs to reach the lightbulbs at the top of the structure.

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Fun
Transcript
00:00I've come in early today because my task for the day is to climb to the top of Salisbury
00:15Cathedral Spire and change the aircraft warning lights at the top of the spire.
00:22There's four of them.
00:24The south side has failed, the lights have been in there for six years so they've come
00:28to the end of their life so I'm going to go up and replace all four.
00:33So we're all harnessed up, ready to go, we're just walking through the cloisters.
00:38I've got Richard here, he is going to be staining the weather door whilst we're up there and
00:45also giving us a hand to change the bulbs and remove one of the old wind speed meters.
00:53So we're just going up the first spiral staircase.
00:59I'm puffing because I've got a heavy pack on and there's a hundred odd steps.
01:09And we're just going into the cave roof space here.
01:18Our staircase is getting even narrower now.
01:23I'll just show you where my feet are, so this is the narrowest staircase that we have.
01:41So I'm at the top of the tower now.
01:44332 steps from the ground or 220 feet and we've still got another 184 feet to go via
01:58ladders inside the spire.
02:03This is one of the ladders and we have fall arrest rope protection going all the way up
02:13on each ladder until we get to the top.
02:18So I'm right at the top of the spire inside.
02:21I'm just ascending the final ladder, pulling up all my safety equipment and I will clip
02:31to this rope in a minute but I just want to give you a view from below.
02:44Do you want to reach around here mate?
02:49There?
02:50Yeah.
02:55Wow, look at the view from here.
02:58Amazing.
03:07So you see the difference in stone here.
03:09This is our local stone.
03:11It's your mark.
03:12This is actually stone from Leicestershire I think.
03:17It's called Clipsham from the Isle of Rutland.
03:20This was up here in the 1950s.
03:23So this is the starting point.
03:25All the stone above was replaced between 1949 and 1951.
03:43So we just opened this one up here and replaced it.
03:52Arthur's just done doing that one there now.
03:56You see below me Richard's painting the weather door with linseed oil.
04:02Just to give it a little bit more longevity.
04:08Yeah, we'll just take that off.
04:11Keep coming up now mate.
04:16Windy up here, Rich.
04:18Yeah.
04:19Lovely.
04:20Good.
04:21Here we are again.
04:22Yay!
04:25Three musketeers on the top of this fire.
04:31I'm coming in now.
04:33Yeah.
04:35Just looking at all the marks left by craftspeople in here.
04:41Look, 1990.
04:45There's 1951 there, look.
04:47That was when they repaired the top 50 feet of the spire.
04:51Someone's had enough up there.
04:53Oh yeah, 1925.

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