St. Michael's Church, Burham-on-Sea

The church has received the exciting donation of two ‘lifesize’ stone angels, from Westminster Abbey. They are to be positioned prominently, in front of the nave, on high columns. The engineering aspects to this issue are basically twofold. Firstly, the angels have eccentric centres of gravity and require substantial – but unobtrusive – support to compensate for the eccentric loading as they perch atop their columns. Secondly, the church itself is built on loose sand and has experienced visible settlement issues over the years, so the columns need to be extremely well founded in order to remain stable. Structurelle’s solution includes the positioning of the angels on cantilevering concrete fluted columns on pad bases which must be independent of the main church structure.

 

Currently carrying out exploratory works on site