TOWN LIFTED FIVE FEET.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 232, 1 October 1925, Page 11

TOWN LIFTED FIVE FEET.

THREE YEARS' TASK COMPLETED. NOT A SINGLE MISHAP. The borough surveyor of Northwich, Cheshire, has reported to the. town council the completion of the lifting of the centre of the town ah aveTagS of five feet, an operation which has taken three veard.

The whole of the business portion of the town, including ten streets, three banks, the county court, and two hundred shops and houses, bus been raised to counteract the effect of subsidence caused by the brine pumping which goes on continually beneath tho town.

If the foundations had not thus been deepened the buildings would have collapsed.

The work has been carried out without stopping business in any way. Shopg have been lifted while full of customers. Only seven or eight buildings, including the ancient Angel Hotel in the Bull Ring, have had to be demolished because they could not? safely be lifted.

Tliere bas not been one mishap. Once a motor-lorry coming round a corner struck the bearer of one of the props on which a shop rested, but about an inch of the bearer kept contact with the prop and the -building was saved from collapse.

In lifting, parts of the lower brickwork were removed and small hydraulic jacks inserted. These, using one or two quarts of water, raised from 10 to 150 tons weight, and wooden blocks supported the building until brickwork filled up tiie space.

Chemists' shops were lifted co carefully that not a bottle was disturbed. The town bridge was raised sft at each end to bring it up to the new level or the town.

A fruiterer's shop ■with a frontage of 30ft was removed bodily to another position. It was put on baulks greased with soap and pushed along a distance of 35ft. Most of the buildings dealt with were in frames fitted to them with, a view to > their being lifted at Some time.