Déjà Vu at the Junction Box

A distinct feeling of déjà vu today, as the Junction Box building team descended into the decaying remains of the box foundations and began removing approximately 3,000 bricks. These were held together (if you can call it that) by the metamorphosed remains of lime mortar, which had turned into something akin to dirty sand.

The concrete footings thus exposed will have core samples taken and professionally examined to confirm whether they are suitable for reuse. All the bricks will be cleaned and reused with modern cement to rebuild the footings. This is a significant amount of work, but it will save us a great deal of money.

After many more hours of back-breaking work, all remaining decaying brickwork was removed and stacked ready for sorting and cleaning. This laid bare the original concrete base, which will be professionally cored and evaluated to determine its suitability for reuse.

Initial examination shows that there were no foundations whatsoever for either the internal wall that ran the length of the access pit inside the building, or for the enormous chimney stack attached to it, whose weight would have been considerable. Both of these issues will be rectified as soon as we receive the structural engineer’s report on the in-situ concrete base. In the meantime, tidying and preparation of the site will continue.

Those of you who followed our previous posts on the S&D box rebuild will be able to watch us, week by week, as we repeat the process on the much larger Junction Box. This will include all the trials and tribulations we experience along the way. As this build is not receiving any lottery grant funding, we would be extremely grateful for any contribution, however small.

Watch this space...