London stone company Stone Productions encountered a nerve-wracking hiccup when they were involved in changes being made to the interior of St Clement\'s Church in Ewell, Surrey. The Jerusalem Desert Cream limestone they had ordered for the project was marooned in Haifa harbour by a dock strike. Stone Productions saved the day when the stone did arrive by working overtime to meet the schedule.

The project involved the repositioning of the altar and the congregational seating so that the altar and priest became the centre of a participating congregation rather than remote from a congregation sitting in long straight rows of pews.

The solution reached by Miriam Howitt, the London-based architect, was to create a circular sanctuary in the body of the church with interlocking stone circles for the three components of the liturgy: the baptismal font, the lectern and the alter - all in solid Jerusalem stone.

There are 60m of treads and risers continuing in a reciprocal curve to link into existing levels at the original side alters. A side entrance was created on the axis of the new sanctuary with a ramp in the same stone, providing disabled access and a direct link to the existing church hall.

Stone Productions also re-worked the original Roman stone altar, retaining the original gold-leafed symbols. It was kept because some of the congregation who had originally raised the funds to build the church in the 1950s did not want to see it go. The authorities did not want it to be recognisably the altar, so it has been turned into a staged podium to hold the Tabernacle with flanking flower arrangements, candles and the votive lamp.

Electrical and sound services for the priest required precise conduits through the stone, and electrical underfloor heating was incorporated beneath the Jerusalem stone of the floor.

The altar is emphasised by a corona designed by the architect. It consists of 30 polished aluminium tubes, end lit by LEDs, mounted on a polished aluminium ring. Spotlights pick out the altar and uplights model the brick fins and reflect back off the ceiling.