Steeplejacks work on St Mary's Church (From York Press)

Steeplejacks work on St Mary's Church in Castlegate, York

9:55am Saturday 29th September 2012 in News

IT MUST be one of the best viewpoints in York.

When St Mary’s Church in Castlegate was hit by lightning a few months ago the conductors buckled. To fix the problem, steeplejacks are painstakingly removing and replacing the aluminium tape from the Grade II listed building, which has the tallest steeple in York, working at heights of 150ft above the ground.

Kev Park, a lightning conductor engineer, said: “We are replacing the existing lightning conductor. We have aluminium tape, but it can be seen for miles when the sun hits it and it’s a Grade II listed building so it looks a bit out of place.

“It can be scary when you are up there. You need to have a head for heights which these lads have. The man up there at the moment is like Spiderman.”

York St Mary’s is a medieval church which opened as a contemporary visual art venue in 2004.

It has the tallest steeple in York at 47 metres high.