Through Stones

I was praying at IMC this morning and looking at the way our forefathers built the original chapel building in 1838. I noticed that the walls had different sized stones put together with a layer every so often of flat stones.

As I was thinking about this Tom Brown Senior came along. His men built the 2005 version of IMC. He said that the flat stones were through-stones which helped to keep the wall intact and standing. "Well," I observed, "They've managed it for nearly 200 years. So it must have worked."

This got me googling on through-stones and I have found that they need to be selected at the beginning of the build. So those original chapel builders chose those through-stones to be in place before the work started.

Through-stones hold the two different parts of the wall together.

Through-stones help distribute the weight of the stones better and can actually add about 75 years to the lifespan of a wall because the wall can settle that much more before it falls apart.

God give us through-stones at IMC 2007