HISTORIC ST. PAUL’S

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 7

HISTORIC ST. PAUL’S

CHURCH AGAIN UNSAFE The safety of St. Paul’s Cathedral has again been brought to the public, attention eye by a report by two independent; engineers. Sir'Alexander Gibb and Mr Ralph Freeman, recommending that a “sacred area" should be established around the cathedral, within which the authorities would be able to forbid operations in the subsoil likely to react upon the foundations of Wren’s masterpiece. The engineers, whose investigations have taken two and a-half years, point out that tho toundations of. the cathedral are built upon a stratum of potter’s clay. This clay, resting upon an underlying hod of, gravel and sand, would not be considered a satis’faotory foundation to-day. - ■ There are evidences, says the report, of extensive settlements during construction and of some movement afterward, confirming tho view that the foundation pressures arc high, and,the margin of safety so small as to compel the most rigorous attention to any circumstance that could-be a possible caiiso of reducing if still further. There is little doubt that interference with the subsoil or subsoil water might easily upset the equilibrium now. existing and cause further settlenient of the building, say the investigators. In the course of their examination the engineers sank a series of twenty-three test pits inside and outside the cathedral to ascertain the nature and conditions of the foundations! In addition, they used the data obtained from the records of over 100 borings in their investigation of the subsoil.

Eight permanent borings have been made on sites around the cathedral in which water-level recording apparatus has been installed in order to provide evidence whether existing subsoil conditions are disturbed, and thus give warning of impending danger to the foundations of London's greatest landmark.