William Weir worked on between 300 and 350 buildings during the course of his career ranging from dovecotes to castles. Many of these were small scale jobs but, as Reginald Snell calculated, 50 of the 275 documented cases were two year jobs, 40 lasted three years and a few took seven or eight years to complete.
Weir did a lot to preserve parish churches. In his book Collins Guide to Parish Churches of England and Wales (1958) John Betjeman says that the one hundred churches he included in his book that Weir worked on were “worth bicycling 12 miles against the wind to see.”
For many years Weir dealt with every aspect of his projects himself from recruiting labour and buying materials. He trained numerous young architects and craftsmen in the SPAB methods and truly embodied the Society’s manifesto.
