From pillar to post!

Things have gone apace since our last update. Below you can see the massive mecano set that has been delivered. All this stuff is for the steel supports to go inside the concrete. Personally I'd like huge Lego bricks.



For those who like cranes... this is the base of ours. It is all remote controlled as said earlier.
But these are the working gubbins. I was told that the crane top is left to swing with the prevailing wind for safety. That means we probably have one of the biggest weather vanes in Sussex!


The far side of the work. Not as advanced as the other side but.... you'll notice that the electrical cupboard is still there! I'm starting to wonder if it will exixt in the new building in a "Narnia" type way. When you go to the back of the cupboard you end up in the 60's??


More areas to dig out.


The ghost of the swimming pool lives on! Rain is not making work easy... but at least it's not snow! Time for a pump??

The footings are ready to be built up on. The pillar supports will be built on the steel bases that can be seen sticking out of the concrete.

There's a whole lot of checking done. Nobody wants to have to "Move the building a bit to the left" later on.

This is one of the long steel pillar supports being prepared.

Close up of the construction of the insides of the reinforcements for the concrete pillars.

The start of the upwards building.

The first row of steel reinforced pillars awaiting their concrete. This comes in big rotating lorry loads and will be poured in using a special "bucket" on the crane.

The second row of pillars under construction. These guys work FAST!

Pouring the concrete into the moulds. Once again the crane does stirling work!

And then there were three rows of pillars!

This is the cladding/mould for a "Shearing Wall". One of the men from Rok explained it to me. The pillars give vertical support. The job of a shearing wall is to give lateral strength to the structure. There will be a number of these walls in the building which will stiffen up the reinforced concrete frame.

Getting in there with a hammer!

The second "shearing" wall goes up. You can see the cladding removed from the first one.

The bricks for the lower sections of the wall foundations start to arrive.

Lots of bricks!

Crane and Concrete.....

And the crane arrives! It had to be big enough to carry anything from Bennetts playground to anywhere on the site! It even stretches over some locals back gardens! It will ferry all the materials (concrete, steel reinforcements, bricks, beams etc) from lorries to where they are needed. Eventually it will lift the bathroom "Pods" into each of the single rooms..... so each new room in the Building will be en-suite with toilet, basin and shower. I'll try to get a full scale map & plans to post here... assuming that it's all right with the Architects. They are a pretty friendly bunch. We had a full meeting with them answering all the questions from last years Boarders and taking on board their suggestions. It was pretty impressive.

Nice colours!

It's quite a tight squeeze getting it in.

Sliding it into position.

This is a picture of the crane at night out of my top floor window. It just goes on and on! There will be more pictures later of what it looks like from further off.

There's no guy up at the top of the crane. It's all controlled from a little remote control box. Kids have toys like this.... but who wouldn't want to have a go with a real one! The ROK guys are pretty skilled to say the least.

The concrete is delivered in those huge great tumbling lorries that you see on the road but never know where they are going and then....

....poured into a giant orange steel bucket....

....lifted off the ground....

....hoisted across the entire site....

....pulled into position....

....... and gets poured into the trench.

Steel reinforcements for the concrete. These are pretty huge!

ROK Site Manager Alan Randall.

"Yup.... this drain is definately blocked!" Our Groundstaff try to sort out the flooded path that Matron has to negociate to get off site.

View from the back of Bennetts. Notice the added ramp. There should be a path going round to the left linking the two halves of the site by the end of February. It will be very welcome.

As you can see... the crane is very visible from Steyning High Street.














It's important to get everything in the right place!














More huge steel reinforcements awaiting concrete.

Footings well under way now.

Larger footings are poured in via a huge tube.

This video is in two parts.... (Second part will be uploaded onto the next Blog all on its own... the thing won't load here.... it's been trying to load for 2 hours now,,, and it's 2 minutes long!) due to having to move camera positions. It is the actual first pouring of the concrete into one of the footing trenches. I saw the Cement Truck arriving and had to run upstairs to grab my camera.... and just in time!

The (deep) end of the Swimming pool.

In our last blog we were just unearthing the old swimming pool. Many years ago a team of crack Boarders (including our very own Mr. John Loader - Current Housemaster) built this pool. John told me just how thick and tough the base of the pool was.... and the new builders had to bring in the "Heavy" hammer to dent it.










The digger, with it's pneumatic hammer, heads for the deep end!
















With a LOT of
"persuasion" it starts to come to pieces.






















The pool reduced to rubble...

















...and the rubble ready to go.





You'd hardly even know there'd been a pool there!










This boring bit of ground is where the MASSIVE crane is going to stand!








You'll notice the absence of a Mulberry tree.... more of that later.














The electric cupboard is still there! It gives a useful reference to show far down the new building will be compared to the old level.














The electric cable has been sprayed red to avoid nasty electrical death type stuff.














This is the new location of the Mulberry Tree.... or stump as it now is. (according to experts this is the best way to move it??) If it lives it will be a few years before I get to have another Mulberry crumble I fear. :-(














This is a close up of the stump of Ye Olde Mulberry Tree.