Industrial History Online
Stockwell Bus Garage
Key Words :- garage
Address :- Binfield Road, Stockwell, London, Greater London, SW4
Grid Ref :- TQ 30359 76686
Co-ordinates :- Lat 51.474126 , Long -0.124407
Local Authority :- Lambeth London Borough Council
Pre 1974 County :- Surrey
Site Status :- Listed - Grade II*
Historic England List No :- 1249757,
Site Condition :- Operational site, in use for original purpose
Description and History of Site:-
Opened 1952 to cover south London tram conversion. Constructed in reinforced precast concrete to economise on use of steel. Then largest roof span without intermediate support in Europe. 9 bays.
The following notes are based on a personal diary kept by the Agent, David Shennan, who was in charge of the construction over 40 years ago:
The main garage is formed by ten reinforced concrete ribs of nearly 200ft. span, and intermediate vaulted roof spans. The unobstructed floor area is almost 200ft. x 400ft. or say about 75,000 sq. ft. It is now in 1993, a Grade II Listed Structure. In addition, supporting facilities included an office block, workshops, machine room, boiler house and stores.
Nine tenders were submitted in March 1950, the successful one being only marginally below the second. The next three were some 5% higher. Doubts were raised about the price being too low, but these were resolved when the scaffolding sub-contractor indicated that the contractor's design of mobile centring was substantially cheaper than what they had proposed to other tenderers. At a meeting with the Architects, at the end of May 1950, it was confirmed that there were still 9 large houses on the site awaiting demolition (most of the others had been brought down by enemy action in the 1940s). Tentative starting dates proposed were 1st July 1950 for the Office Block and 1st August for the Main Garage. During this period the bulk of the somewhat complex drawings for centring and shuttering were prepared.
In the post-war period 1950-1952 the supply of materials could still present some of the wartime difficulties. This applied particularly to timber and reinforcing steel.Steel panels were therefore used as much as practicable for shuttering. The sides of the arch ribs were a combination of standard steel panels and specially built timber panels at top and bottom. Reinforcement priorities were altered to concentrate on supply to Office Block and ancillary buildings (if need be, buses could be parked in the open). The first stage therefore included 3 only of the arched ribs, as the supply of steel was so uncertain.
There was also a shortage of experienced supervising staff such as carpenter foremen, and general foremen who could control several hundred men. As construction progressed (slowly), changes had to be made, but eventually a first-class team emerged with corresponding improvement in production and efficiency of working.
Work on site started with the laying of blinding concrete over consolidated hardcore in the Main Garage floor area. On this were laid steel channels on Larssen piles which formed the runways along which rollers under the arch centring travelled.
The centring was arranged in five sections - 2 haunches, 2 intermediate and one central. As each section was concreted and matured, the centring under it could then be jacked on to rollers and moved to the next bay.
A minimum of scaffolding on the trailing side of the rib was all that had to be dismantled and re-erected. Before any centring could be erected however, trenches had to be excavated for the ties which took the arch thrust. 1½ inch dia. bars were butt welded and subsequently encased in concrete. After the initial successful use of the arch rib shutters on one wall of the end box beam, there was a local slip of the shutter forming the second wall of the box, due to omission of some through-bolts. After rectification the box rib was completed without further trouble. Difficulty was experienced in placing concrete at the arch springings due to the limited clearance available where column and rib steel intersected. After trying various mixes this problem was solved by re-location of bars so that a poker vibrator could be inserted. A new problem arose when 7 day cubes failed to come up to specification core and sonic tests confirmed this. No satisfactory explanation was found, in spite of the comments of several experts who were called in. The most likely explanation seemed to be a concentration of silt caused by a heavy downpour of rain, washing it down to the bottom of the batch plant sand hopper. Welding of 1½ inch dia. reinforcement was another early problem. Some failures could be attributed to lack of skill, but in cold weather chilling took place unless precautions were taken. It took time to discover a suitable electrode, and access was not easy particularly in the tie-rod trenches. There were over 1,000 butt welds.
Further Reading and References:-
Stratton, Michael and Trinder, Barrie. 'Twentieth Century Industrial Archaeology'. Spon, 2000
Smith, Denis. 'Civil Engineering Heritage - London and the Thames Valley'. Institution of Civil Engineers, 2001
http://www.glias.org.uk/news/156news.html#G
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Grid Ref :- TQ 30359 76686
Co-ordinates :- Lat 51.474126 , Long -0.124407
Local Authority :- Lambeth London Borough Council
Pre 1974 County :- Surrey
Site Status :- Listed - Grade II*
Historic England List No :- 1249757,
Site Condition :- Operational site, in use for original purpose
Opened 1952 to cover south London tram conversion. Constructed in reinforced precast concrete to economise on use of steel. Then largest roof span without intermediate support in Europe. 9 bays.
The following notes are based on a personal diary kept by the Agent, David Shennan, who was in charge of the construction over 40 years ago:
The main garage is formed by ten reinforced concrete ribs of nearly 200ft. span, and intermediate vaulted roof spans. The unobstructed floor area is almost 200ft. x 400ft. or say about 75,000 sq. ft. It is now in 1993, a Grade II Listed Structure. In addition, supporting facilities included an office block, workshops, machine room, boiler house and stores.
Nine tenders were submitted in March 1950, the successful one being only marginally below the second. The next three were some 5% higher. Doubts were raised about the price being too low, but these were resolved when the scaffolding sub-contractor indicated that the contractor's design of mobile centring was substantially cheaper than what they had proposed to other tenderers. At a meeting with the Architects, at the end of May 1950, it was confirmed that there were still 9 large houses on the site awaiting demolition (most of the others had been brought down by enemy action in the 1940s). Tentative starting dates proposed were 1st July 1950 for the Office Block and 1st August for the Main Garage. During this period the bulk of the somewhat complex drawings for centring and shuttering were prepared.
In the post-war period 1950-1952 the supply of materials could still present some of the wartime difficulties. This applied particularly to timber and reinforcing steel.Steel panels were therefore used as much as practicable for shuttering. The sides of the arch ribs were a combination of standard steel panels and specially built timber panels at top and bottom. Reinforcement priorities were altered to concentrate on supply to Office Block and ancillary buildings (if need be, buses could be parked in the open). The first stage therefore included 3 only of the arched ribs, as the supply of steel was so uncertain.
There was also a shortage of experienced supervising staff such as carpenter foremen, and general foremen who could control several hundred men. As construction progressed (slowly), changes had to be made, but eventually a first-class team emerged with corresponding improvement in production and efficiency of working.
Work on site started with the laying of blinding concrete over consolidated hardcore in the Main Garage floor area. On this were laid steel channels on Larssen piles which formed the runways along which rollers under the arch centring travelled.
The centring was arranged in five sections - 2 haunches, 2 intermediate and one central. As each section was concreted and matured, the centring under it could then be jacked on to rollers and moved to the next bay.
A minimum of scaffolding on the trailing side of the rib was all that had to be dismantled and re-erected. Before any centring could be erected however, trenches had to be excavated for the ties which took the arch thrust. 1½ inch dia. bars were butt welded and subsequently encased in concrete. After the initial successful use of the arch rib shutters on one wall of the end box beam, there was a local slip of the shutter forming the second wall of the box, due to omission of some through-bolts. After rectification the box rib was completed without further trouble. Difficulty was experienced in placing concrete at the arch springings due to the limited clearance available where column and rib steel intersected. After trying various mixes this problem was solved by re-location of bars so that a poker vibrator could be inserted. A new problem arose when 7 day cubes failed to come up to specification core and sonic tests confirmed this. No satisfactory explanation was found, in spite of the comments of several experts who were called in. The most likely explanation seemed to be a concentration of silt caused by a heavy downpour of rain, washing it down to the bottom of the batch plant sand hopper. Welding of 1½ inch dia. reinforcement was another early problem. Some failures could be attributed to lack of skill, but in cold weather chilling took place unless precautions were taken. It took time to discover a suitable electrode, and access was not easy particularly in the tie-rod trenches. There were over 1,000 butt welds.
Stratton, Michael and Trinder, Barrie. 'Twentieth Century Industrial Archaeology'. Spon, 2000
Smith, Denis. 'Civil Engineering Heritage - London and the Thames Valley'. Institution of Civil Engineers, 2001
http://www.glias.org.uk/news/156news.html#G
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Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © GLIAS Database