Spencer Court, (Newburn Culvert) - Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Getting on for almost a year now, @siologen Jeeves Westminster and my good self decided to go and have a look at the works over at the ill fated Spencer Court now it's all been fixed up.
Essentially a Victorian brick lined culvert built in the 1800's underneath the now Dunelm Homes estate of Spencer Court/Mill Vale built in 2006 on land owned by the Duke of Northumbria.
The culvert first collapsed in May 2012.
Later that day, a 20ft wide sink hole opened up adjacent to the council yard on Millfield Lane.
A month later in June 2012, a major storm event occurred which caused further damage to the land and properties surrounding
the doomed estate, so much so the majority of the apartments were fully evacuated due to serious safety concerns!
Pumps had already been installed in an attempt to alleviate the situation.
However they couldn't hold their own when on 25th September some further flash flooding occurred and the ground around the foundations of the apartments was catastrophically erroded away in a matter of hours.
One of the apartment blocks balanced precariously on it's concrete piles before it was eventually pulled down.
Once the storms abated, there was now only one thing for it..
A massive undertaking to re-build and repair the existing watercourse was the next phase, costing in excess of £10M quid to sort out.
The old Duke had to part with some valuable paintings and heirlooms to fund it all.
Initial repair work included the sinking of a 10.5m by 12.5m concrete shaft adjacent to the upstream section on land off Millfield Lane to gain access to the collapsed zone into which 140 tonnes of hi-tech “grout” was poured to stabilise the ground.
An estimated 300 tonnes of displaced soil was excavated, a brand new section of “pipe jacked” culvert was built in the area of the collapse.
A specialist company was also enlisted to install a structural concrete lining within the 125m of the existing culvert and to work 24-hour shifts in order to carry out the necessary repairs as speedily as possible.
To make things easier to understand, I'll order the findings from the downstream section of the culvert as we explored it...
Culverted section underneath High Street, ahead of the outfall into the Tyne.
The low bridge is home to a number of utilities which you have to stoop underneath and endure a knee deep silted traverse for a short distance
Next up, a reinforced section where there had been another collapse in 2012, soon followed by the existing brick culvert we had come to see here
An age old braced section near the Mill Vale section of the estate; Note that the arching beyond is being crushed by the housing above..
Followed up by more brick, here you can see the original heavy basalt kerb stones lining it, and some of the debris that has been 'washed' down.
Continuing upstream, notice the lower walls are concrete and the upper walls and arching are brick
Here you can see the start of the evidence of repairs, flash flooding has stripped away the original basalt kerb stones lining it.
Next up we had to negotiate this weir, quite an unusual feature.
Looking back down..
We were now below the Mill Vale end of the housing estate, here a sizable HDPE pipe has replaced the existing brick culvert.
Here the culvert exits briefly South of Spencer Court
Around 30m the culvert runs below the now demolished block that once featured at the end of Spencer Court as seen at the start of this thread.
This entire section has been re-constructed and runs towards the shaft that was sunk shortly after the collapse.
Sayhelloagain
Pissing about in the 10.5m x 12.5m concrete inspection shaft, before following the culvert upstream
Here you can see where the existing culvert has been structurally lined with concrete
The upstream continuation was a bit of a stoop until we reached the infall structure at Walbottle Dene.
Thanks for looking
Getting on for almost a year now, @siologen Jeeves Westminster and my good self decided to go and have a look at the works over at the ill fated Spencer Court now it's all been fixed up.
Essentially a Victorian brick lined culvert built in the 1800's underneath the now Dunelm Homes estate of Spencer Court/Mill Vale built in 2006 on land owned by the Duke of Northumbria.
The culvert first collapsed in May 2012.
Later that day, a 20ft wide sink hole opened up adjacent to the council yard on Millfield Lane.
A month later in June 2012, a major storm event occurred which caused further damage to the land and properties surrounding
the doomed estate, so much so the majority of the apartments were fully evacuated due to serious safety concerns!
Pumps had already been installed in an attempt to alleviate the situation.
However they couldn't hold their own when on 25th September some further flash flooding occurred and the ground around the foundations of the apartments was catastrophically erroded away in a matter of hours.
One of the apartment blocks balanced precariously on it's concrete piles before it was eventually pulled down.
Once the storms abated, there was now only one thing for it..
A massive undertaking to re-build and repair the existing watercourse was the next phase, costing in excess of £10M quid to sort out.
The old Duke had to part with some valuable paintings and heirlooms to fund it all.
Initial repair work included the sinking of a 10.5m by 12.5m concrete shaft adjacent to the upstream section on land off Millfield Lane to gain access to the collapsed zone into which 140 tonnes of hi-tech “grout” was poured to stabilise the ground.
An estimated 300 tonnes of displaced soil was excavated, a brand new section of “pipe jacked” culvert was built in the area of the collapse.
A specialist company was also enlisted to install a structural concrete lining within the 125m of the existing culvert and to work 24-hour shifts in order to carry out the necessary repairs as speedily as possible.
To make things easier to understand, I'll order the findings from the downstream section of the culvert as we explored it...
Culverted section underneath High Street, ahead of the outfall into the Tyne.
The low bridge is home to a number of utilities which you have to stoop underneath and endure a knee deep silted traverse for a short distance
Next up, a reinforced section where there had been another collapse in 2012, soon followed by the existing brick culvert we had come to see here
An age old braced section near the Mill Vale section of the estate; Note that the arching beyond is being crushed by the housing above..
Followed up by more brick, here you can see the original heavy basalt kerb stones lining it, and some of the debris that has been 'washed' down.
Continuing upstream, notice the lower walls are concrete and the upper walls and arching are brick
Here you can see the start of the evidence of repairs, flash flooding has stripped away the original basalt kerb stones lining it.
Next up we had to negotiate this weir, quite an unusual feature.
Looking back down..
We were now below the Mill Vale end of the housing estate, here a sizable HDPE pipe has replaced the existing brick culvert.
Here the culvert exits briefly South of Spencer Court
Around 30m the culvert runs below the now demolished block that once featured at the end of Spencer Court as seen at the start of this thread.
This entire section has been re-constructed and runs towards the shaft that was sunk shortly after the collapse.
Sayhelloagain
Pissing about in the 10.5m x 12.5m concrete inspection shaft, before following the culvert upstream
Here you can see where the existing culvert has been structurally lined with concrete
The upstream continuation was a bit of a stoop until we reached the infall structure at Walbottle Dene.
Thanks for looking
