Thread by @JamesAALongman

How do you restore a national treasure during a pandemic?

Updating this thread today as we go INSIDE Notre Dame during the renovation

The big danger at Notre Dame is lead poisoning - requiring a pretty involved decontamination process. You have to change out of your clothes, and into this lovely getup, over which you wear another layer and a helmet. Showers separate clean zones and dirty zones.

A Belgian-American architect Andrew Tallon made detailed plans of Notre Dame in 2010. This is the result of some of his work: architects map out parts of the cathedral, with stone retrieved from the floor.

This is a medieval arch from the nave being pieced together

And this arch belongs up there - 25 meters up

Remember the Crown of Thorns? This is what happened to it

I’m up on the roof of Notre Dame. Where the fire started

The infamous hole in the roof

The charred stumps of oak that once held up this part of the roof

With thanks to head archaeologist Dorothée Chaoui-Derieux for showing us around this extraordinary building

Some more photos of the work up close, some gargoyles and our @ABC team filming

And then, at the end of an interesting and exciting day, our cameraman grabbed this photo of me asking for my phone (which I had to scrub) from the little flap in the decontamination shower

Found some other photos courtesy of @IbtGd : these are the abseiling builders, who collect valuable fragments of stone and wood, and transport them to ground level.