The South Bridge Project Continued...

Have you caught a glimpse of the work going on to the South Bridge?

By looking out of the Mansion window, like the visitors in this picture, or by walking on the South side, you can see the small scale construction project working towards the restoration of the South Bridge.

In decades past the ‘bridge’ over the light well allowed the owners and guests to exit onto the lawns and gardens directly from the ground floor of the mansion!

A ‘light well’,is an open area, at basement / cellar / scullery level allowing light to pass into the work areas below whilst keeping any view of the owners or guests private from those ‘in service’.

 

Quite ‘cleverly’ at Beningbrough this light well also  serves as a drainage system . As the ground on which the Mansion is founded is close to the River, consideration was given to the possibility that the presence of water might undermine the walls of the building.

So a system of land drains, set into the floor of the light well, was used to keep water levels around the building low, consequently working to preserve its foundation.

Recent excavations show a quite advanced system with a culvert in the ‘light well’ leading any water away from the building into the ha ha.

                             This picture shows the culvert made up of a small brick arch
                             – built nearly 300 years ago!

The south face of Beningbrough Hall, has faced the elements since it’s construction in the early 1700s with little apparent need for attention. However if you look closely at several areas around our site, you can see there has been quite severe ageing!

This is evident below –

This door case is clearly losing it’s carved surfaces – this is to be consolidated (we can’t bring back the lost details shown in the photograph above, it is more to do with stopping further deterioration by applying a lime sheltercoat and consolidating the missing / loose / poor areas such as the mortar repair on the photo below)

 

                                                       

                                      Replace poor mortar repairs for example

The South Bridge walkway itself is leaning towards the mansion as the latter, in common with most buildings, has gradually settled over its 300 year life.

The mansion was built straight off the ground with some basic ‘foundations’ which should be wider than the wall thickness to spread the weight, but not the concrete strips we would expect today. As the base of the wall is more or less the same width as the foundation this has gradually acted like a big ‘knife edge’ and cut into the earth below.

Previous efforts to rectify the slope had the central area of the bridge levelled and a gutter set into the landing to prevent water flooding into the mansion.

The side / edge stones were left to slope perhaps to save work on the railings and the amount of slope can clearly be seen where levelled stone meets edge stone.

And also the brickwork of the arch supporting the bridge has suffered and is crumbling at the edges.

These pictures were taken after the railings were removed for their restoration.

The stone slabs used for the bridge and steps are of a type which is soft when quarried but with age goes brittle so it is important to lift them carefully and it can be quite an effort.

It takes 4 men to lift the main slabs and from this picture you can see why. The contractors wear steel toe-capped boots as part of their safety gear.

As shown in the image above, this is quite a delicate operation, as even the slightest knock can cause further damage to these historic slabs. Whilst  only one slab – already fragile – has been broken so far, along with two others that had fault lines. Despite this all three of these slabs can be repaired or replaced..

Lifting the slabs is heavy work and other secret connections also exist such as metal ‘cramps’ joining slabs together – this picture shows the joint once the slab was lifted.

Whilst the edge slabs were ‘bedded’ in light sand / cement as the contractors moved to lift slabs in the previously levelled central area – oh dear they are set on concrete so the job becomes harder and more time and care consuming.

Check back in regularly to see how the work continues and to catch a glimpse of the South Bridge being returned to its former glory.

Blog and images by John Gray, Volunteer.