SCAFFOLDING which has shrouded one of the region’s best-loved landmarks is on schedule to come down next year.

The top of Durham Cathedral’s 15th Century tower has been covered in plastic sheeting since early in 2016 as painstaking work takes place to conserve the sandstone.

The cathedral says work on the £800,000 conservation project is on schedule, with work due to be completed in the autumn of 2018 followed by the removal of the scaffolding by the end of the year, restoring the famous view of the World Heritage Site.

Due to its complexity and sensitive location, the scaffolding took seven months to erect, after which the cathedral architect was able to closely inspect the stonework, deciding which individual stones needed repaired and which needed replaced entirely.

Some of the repairs were required because the sandstone had been eroded, while others were needed because ironwork put in place during a previous restoration in the 1850s had rusted and expanded, causing the stones to crack.

A seven-strong team of cathedral stonemasons then took precise measurements to create scale drawings of the individual stones for the hand-carved replacements.

The first phase of work on the balustrade, which involved lowering about 200 blocks to ground level, ended last month, leaving two further phases to complete: the interior and exterior of the bell tower.

Maya Polenz, head of property at Durham Cathedral, said: “We have just started phase two, which is the outside of the bell tower and we have just put up scaffolding on the inside, around the bells

“We will be in the workshop all winter to produce the stonework, which will go up in the spring.

“Work will be completed by late autumn 2018 and then the scaffolding will come down.

“This time next year we hope to have the scaffolding down. It takes quite a bit of work, it’s quite a bit of engineering”.

Along with the challenges of working on a 66-metre tall tower, because the stonemasons are working with lead, frequent monitoring of the air quality on the building site is carried out and they all undergo regular blood tests to ensure there is no impact on health.

Ms Polenz added: “We had to remove more stones in phase one than we had anticipated, but we had a contingency plan. That took a while.

“The architect has looked at the stability of the tower and it looks like it is in good shape.

“We don’t have to do as much in phase two and three as we thought.

“It’s well built – there are no structural problems, which is good. There have been no surprises so far”.