Imagine a 5/8"(16mm) cable running through 6"x6" (14cmx14cm) pressure treated blocks about 4 feet (1.2 meters) apart. The cable gets wrapped around the stack and connected to itself through a turnbuckle which is tightened to provide tension.
Now think of a steel right triangle with the legs being the vertical and horizontal aspect with the hypotenuse supporting the horizontal leg. The horizontal leg has a vertical tube welded where it meets the hypotenuse. The vertical leg as a hook curving down from the top away from the horizontal leg and a wooden pad at the bottom. We called these stackjacks but a Google search tells me that may have just been what we called them and not their actual name.
The hook hangs on the cable discussed above and the pad rests against the smokestack. 2 2"x12" (4cm x 29cm) walkboards are laid between these stackjacks. The vertical tube at the end accepts poles to which a railing is attached.
You mentioned steeples first. That may have been a mistake, but I will answer anyway. You climb a steeple from the inside and exit from a door at the base of, or on, the spire. From there we would typically build a platform on which to erect our ladder to go as far up the spire as needed.
All the stacks I worked on, save one I can remember, had beacon lights that needed regular maintenance and all had ladders built in. The ladders did not go all the way to the ground/roof level. That was to keep unauthorized folks from climbing it.
I remember two stacks had permanent catwalks around the top. One of them was quite corroded and not a comfortable place to walk. Like a sibling comment mentioned, that difficulty in maintaining them is a reason why many stacks don't have ladders. Some stacks that don't have them once did, but they were removed due to corrosion.
As far as access, all of the stacks I worked on had only one ladder. If the job was small and there was work that needed to be completed on the other side we had two options.
1. If the repair was low enough we could attach the ropes from which we hung our bosun's chair at the top and swing around to the other side.
2. If the repair was too high to do that or too involved we would build a scaffold all the way around the stack.
As someone who grew up in a family of Steeplejacks (my father was third generation), I am always amazed and delighted by the amount of attention Dibnah got in his day in the UK and continues to get today via the internet. Here in the states, people would always just look at me like I had two heads when I told them what the family business was.
This is interesting and not at all how we would rig a smokestack (as we call them). I worked for the company in the early 90s but we were using rigging that was built by the company in the 60s or earlier. In relation to how we did it his solution seems to me to be overly complicated and perhaps a bit more dicey than what we were doing.
I can write something up if anyone is interested in how we did it.
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Now think of a steel right triangle with the legs being the vertical and horizontal aspect with the hypotenuse supporting the horizontal leg. The horizontal leg has a vertical tube welded where it meets the hypotenuse. The vertical leg as a hook curving down from the top away from the horizontal leg and a wooden pad at the bottom. We called these stackjacks but a Google search tells me that may have just been what we called them and not their actual name.
The hook hangs on the cable discussed above and the pad rests against the smokestack. 2 2"x12" (4cm x 29cm) walkboards are laid between these stackjacks. The vertical tube at the end accepts poles to which a railing is attached.
TLDR look at these photos of a company that does it exactly how we did. https://apexchimney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/exteriori... https://apexchimney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMGP40400...