I'd appreciate the creative thoughts of the handier members on this one.

Castle Draft is a period Maltese townhouse. The typical floor construction is unlike anything seen in Britain- heavy wooden beams spanning the rooms at around 3-4 feet centres overlaid with limestone slabs around 3 inches thick. On top of that goes several inches of fine limestone chippings which spread the load and finally the tiled finish typically laid in a dry screed.

I have a large ornate carved limestone ceiling rose which I need to fit in my dining room- around 20 inches diameter and probably weighing around 50-60 pounds.

I will be hanging a large and heavy chandelier for which I will make provision in the form of a hefty rawlbolt with eye fixing, and running the wiring in a conduit in the joint between two ceiling slabs. That is the easy part. I'm scratching my head over how to fix the rose.

I'm definitely going to use a strong mortar mix (we use powdered limestone instead of sand) and the whole affair will be neatly pointed-in as the finished ceiling is bare stone, the only finish being a couple of coats of linseed oil to seal the stone and bring out the colour.

But I will also need some fixings and here is where I could do with some suggestions. I can drill through the rose and countersink for hefty screws or bolts and can easily dress over the heads afterwards with limestone dust and cement. By the way the ceiling is 15-16 feet high so I will be working from my scaffolding tower and will temporarily screw a couple of battens into the beams either side and cut to length some loose battens to sit between them and hold the rose in place until it is fixed.

Will I get away with rawlplugs and large woodscrews or is there a better fixing? I'm wondering about lengths of female threaded tube epoxied into holes drilled in the ceiling slabs.

Thoughts would be welcome!