It’s all too easy to publish to the internet, unless Conroy Maddox has been using your keyboard as I am sure all of the art lovers who attended the Turner Contemporary will understand.
Many thanks to the contractor Cardy Construction for chipping the chalk off of one of the foundations to a support pillar, that is part of the concrete structure of the arches, part of the Pleasurama cliff façade and sending me a picture.
I genuinely think that it is safe to walk on the cliff top footpath now, something I will be doing again.
Here is the picture and this is what they have to say about it.
“Dear Michael
As recently discussed please find the attached photograph of the exposed column foundation. The location of concrete highlighted in red extending below the excavation level passed the dotted line would indicate the foundations are built as described within the historic drawings. It would appear that the concrete was originally cast against chalk and not shuttered therefore causing the surface of the concrete to appear uneven. We have washed the concrete off as much as possible and driven steel rods into the foundation which appears to be of sound construction.
Regards,
Michael”
As recently discussed please find the attached photograph of the exposed column foundation. The location of concrete highlighted in red extending below the excavation level passed the dotted line would indicate the foundations are built as described within the historic drawings. It would appear that the concrete was originally cast against chalk and not shuttered therefore causing the surface of the concrete to appear uneven. We have washed the concrete off as much as possible and driven steel rods into the foundation which appears to be of sound construction.
Regards,
Michael”
This, like so many historical engineering puzzles, has a solution that probably involves practices that wouldn’t occur today.
What happened in this case was that having cut a slot about three feet wide and about three feet deep, going up the seventy foot high bare chalk cliff above, they got some poor chap to get in the bottom of the slot and dig a hole eight and a half feet deep in solid chalk.
I think this picture (I have put coloured lines on the original 1930s plan and sorry about the drawing of the bloke, my children are better at using MS Paint) explains what this is about.
Viewed from the side on.
The red line is the outline of the concrete pillar.
The green line the original line of the ground before the contractor dug out the ground next to the cliff about a fortnight ago.
The brown line about where they have dug the ground down to now.
The blue bit shows where the concrete block walls between the arches are.
Having solved one problem that is a mixture of industrial archaeology and civil engineering, like so many other things in life that leaves us with another problem and more questions.
Can anyone think of a way that they could have got the foundations in for the infill walls between the arches? The most they could be are nine inches thick, I think, not room enough for a man to get inside.
You can see from on the right hand side of Cardy’s photo that the virgin chalk seems to go right up to the bottom of the block wall.
Are there any foundations under the concrete block infills? If there are, do they extend down as far as the contractor has dug down? Are the concrete block infills tied to the pillars either side? In the simplest terms, is there a danger of block infill walls falling on the people working on the building site next to them?
I don’t know how far down you can dig a nine inch wide foundation trench in solid chalk with a shovel, but would doubt it is as far as the chalk has been dug down next to bottom of the block wall.
The pictures should all expand if you click on them.
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