OTHER CIVIL ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS

The use of iron in foundations

Introduction

Once cast iron had been established as a useful and practical structural material in the late eighteenth century, it was only going to be a question of time before an enterprising ironmaster, engineer or architect considered its application for substructures. Timber piles and platforms in combination with masonry were the traditional foundation materials, although other expedients such as rammed chalk and fascines had been employed, and in the early nineteenth century concrete began to be used . (Chrimes, 1996; Kerisel, 1956; 1985). Iron itself had been used for specialist applications such as rock foundations (below) and for pile shoes.

The application of iron to foundations was a specialist area and even when iron was employed in superstructures, whether bridges, iron frames or roofs, its performance was generally governed by that of substructures built using traditional methods and materials. While the Leaning Tower of Pisa provides an enduring monument to the foundation problems faced by past generations, and towers in Bologna show similar signs of distress, others towers having collapsed completely, mediaeval and

renaissance master builders were capable of erecting enduring structures on a scale not regularly surpassed before the twentieth century. The gothic cathedral is perhaps the most spectacular example, but in northern Italy and the Low Countries large civic buildings were erected, while military engineers designed successive generations of fortifications. More the province of the civil engineer were the hydraulic structures erected on the rivers and canals of the Netherlands and Lombardy from the fourteenth century onwards, using timber for bearing and sheet piles, lock walls, gates and floors, in combination with masonry and (pozzolanic) mortars. (Skempton, 1957 repr Chrimes 1998). Fascine work was traditionally used to stabilise coastal defence works.

Our knowledge of the foundations of the medieval and early modern period is based on surviving documentary evidence (Brown, 1963; Parsons, 1939), including some specifications (Salzman, 1952) archaeological evidence, and the discoveries of those who have had to deal with surviving structures. Price, Willis (R. Willis 1972-1973) Architectural history of some English Cathedrals, 2 parts, Chicheley: P B Minet,), Viollet le Duc, F. Fox. Recent conferences have discussed some of the problems presented by older structures to modern geotechnical engineers.

As an example at Amiens cathedral there was a raft of stones set in mortar on which a grid of masonry walls and stepped piers supporting the main structural columns rested. Appropriate good practice would have been adopted elsewhere although one suspects few modern engineers would accept such a definition for the foundations of the tower at Salisbury Cathedral. The main columns there rest upon stone slabs founded on medium dense gravel excavated to a depth of 5ft - just above the summer water table - the gravel rests upon chalk, and the load on the slabs is 10 tons/ft2.

In a local context builders and artisans would have been aware of the limitations of local ground, and developed the necessary expertise. Although piling engines were rare, the London Bridge engines being lent for other work in the late mediaeval period, they were in use, and for some mediaeval projects there is considerable knowledge on how foundations were installed (Boyer, 1981-1985).

In the early mediaeval period bridge pier foundations were generally built as artificial islands using loose masonry confined by piles on which a levelled platform could be formed above water level-London Bridge was erected on such starlings. On the continent cofferdams were in use by the fifteenth century as a means of excluding water and building up from the river bed in the dry; such techniques are known from early printed works such as Ramelli (1588), but it is unclear when they were first used in England. However, by the start of the eighteenth century in England the number of river improvement and land reclamation schemes was such that there were some craftsmen practising who described themselves as water carpenters, expert in the installation of sheet piles, locks and weirs. The Swiss engineer Charles Labelye introduced timber caissons at this time as an alternative to cofferdams for the

foundations of Westminster Bridge (Walker, 1979) and in the second half of the eighteenth century this emerged as the most economical method of subaqueous foundations for bridge piers. At Westminster the masonry caisson was placed on a prepared dredged bed, and the masonry for the piers built up on the caisson bottom, but concerns over the performance of the foundations meant that at Blackfriars piles were driven beneath the site of the caisson before it was placed. In this technique the caisson sides would be reused for successive piers. By the end of the eighteenth century such techniques had become obsolescent as more efficient steam pumps became available, cofferdam construction techniques improved, and the need for economy was less pressing (Ruddock, 1979). Caissons were also used in harbours as instanced by Smeaton at Ramsgate in the 1790s.

With the changing nature of warfare retaining wall design became a major consideration for the military engineer. Although this aspect of military architecture is most commonly associated with work of the French engineer Vauban at the end of the seventeenth century, one of the earliest English military treatises, by Paul Ive, discusses proportions for retaining walls, as well as the use of piling (Ive, 1589).

If foundation engineering was essentially a practical science down to 1700, from then onwards, particularly in France there was increasing consideration given to providing a more theoretical foundation for the design of arch bridges, including their abutments, piers, and retaining walls. These developments have been summarised by Heyman (1972). They were accompanied by some practical experiments on earth pressure, which continued into the early nineteenth century (Field, 1948; Skempton, 1977). More general reviews of the advances in the understanding of soil mechanics are provided by Skempton (1977, 1985). While one can doubt the influence of theory on the local contractor at a time when contracts where still generally given on a trade basis, by the end of the eighteenth century, when iron was being introduced, engineers like Telford and Rennie are known to have possessed a number of continental textbooks, which would also have been available to military engineers. Published works like those of Meyer (1685), Perronet (1782-1789) and De Cessart (1806) provide illustrations of foundation techniques of the time. Jensen ( 1969) was able to draw on these to provide a useful summary. Perronet and De Cessart also provide

detailed records of construction experience. For some idea of British practice one can refer to Smeatons reports (Smeaton, 1812), Cresys Encyclopaedia of civil engineering (Cresy, 1847), and Hughes Essay on bridge foundations for Weale. Hughes work is of particular interest as he was a second generation civil engineering contractor whose family had worked for Telford and Rennie.

For ordinary masonry walls, and column piers stepped brickwork would be normal to help spread the load [fig.__], accompanied as appropriate by piling and/or a timber platform. Between the pile heads it was normal to ram layer of rubble. It was important the steps were not too broad or there was a danger the concentrated load would shear off the step below. Such methods were carried over into iron supported structures such as that illustrated here at the Tobacco Dock warehouse London Docks (Mitchell). Such methods were not always successful as a brick footing capped with Yorkshire stone failed, according to a London iron founder George Cottam, c.1830. The iron column it was supporting passed through the stone and on through its brickwork support [fig. ___]. The most likely explanation could be a weakened slab, and a footing of brick encased rubbish, with no solid bonded brick core.

London Bridge (Nash, 1973; 1981) can be seen as indicative of best practice in bridge foundations at the start of the nineteenth century and can be compared with that of the iron bridges at Southwark and Tewkesbury [figs. ____]. By that time, in contrast to half a century earlier, major contractors existed such as Hugh McIntosh (Chrimes) and Jolliffe and Banks (Dickinson). Such organisations would have had considerable expertise in construction, and, allowing for commercial pressures and the occasional incompetent agent, they were unlikely to install inappropriate foundations unless instructed by the engineer. Foundation engineering seems to have remained their province, if one can judge by the lack of textbooks which appeared on the subject through the nineteenth century, Dobson being a solitary exception. Site investigation was still, however, in its infancy in terms of instrumentation, and it was difficult to obtain uncontaminated samples in soft ground [fig. ____].

Use of iron in foundations and substructures

Turning to the introduction of iron, timbers susceptibility to decay, particularly in exposed marine locations meant any economical alternative was likely to be considered seriously. Availability of reliable quality ironwork at economical prices, facility of fabrication and installation, perceived advantages of durability, and relative strength of the material will all have played a part in the adoption of iron for foundations. Perhaps the most obvious application would be the use of hollow

circular castings for piles, but plate iron could be used for sheet pile work - accurate driving of timber dovetail piles which had been used for centuries must have been very difficult - and iron could also be used for ties and anchorages. Timber piles were unsuitable for hard driving, and iron offered a possible practical alternative assuming the use of piles was appropriate at all. Larger diameter cylinders could be fabricated and be used for bridge piers and as caissons, later making use of compressed air work. Cast iron tubbing was employed to line mine and water well shafts. An obvious though perhaps surprisingly late development was to employ such lining for horizontal, rather than vertical, excavations in the form of tube tunnels.

The implications for substructures of the use of structural ironwork are perhaps best exemplified by the Midland Railways St Pancras Station. The approach to the terminus was well above street level and the original intention had been to erect a multispan train shed on fill. From the earliest introduction of railways to London Railway Companies had looked at letting out space beneath viaducts as a means of recouping capital expenditure, and this had been followed with the Charing Cross and Cannon Street extensions into London. When considering this option, rather than the expensive foundations associated with the heavy traditional masonry vaulting for cellarage, Barlow looked at the idea of supporting the track and platform level on beams and cast iron columns, developing a layout based on the dimensions of Burton beer barrels, the most obvious customer. This option maximised the cellarage and opened up new possibilities for the superstructure. The girders supporting the station floor could act as a tie, which could be used in construction with a single arch roof . A tied arch of this nature avoided the need for expensive intermediate footings and massive columns supporting a multi-span roof structure and cluttering the cellarage. St Pancras is justly regarded as one of the structural masterpieces of the age of iron, and of course iron had been used, more modestly, many times below ground before.

Sources

P Ive (1589, repr, 1970) The Practice of fortifications; A W Skempton (1979) Landmarks in early soil mechanics, European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, 7th, vol.5, pp.1-26; A W Skempton (1985) A History of soil properties 1717-1927, 11th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. Golden Jubilee volume, pp.95-121; J Heyman (1972)

Coulombs memoir on statics. Cambridge: University Press; J Heyman. Couplets. History of technology; J Kerisel. Histoire de la mecanique des sols en France

jusquau 20e siecle. Geotechnique, vol.6, 1956, pp.151-166; J Kerisel (1985) The History of geotechnical engineering up until 1700. 11th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. Golden Jubilee volume, pp.3-94; J Field (1948) Early history and bibliography of soil mechanics. 2nd International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Rotterdam, vol.1, pp.1-7; N Flodin, and B B Broms (1981) History of civil engineering in soft clay in Soft clay engineering, 1977. Elsevier, 1981. Chapter 1; M N Boyer (1981) Moving ahead with the fifteenth century: new ideas in bridge construction at Orleans. History of

technology, 6, p.2-; L F Salzman (1952) Building in England down to 1540. Oxford: Clarendon, p.86; R A Brown and others. Eds. (1963) History of the Kings works. The Middle Ages. London: HMSO, vol.1, p.434; M N Boyer (1984) A fourteenth century pile driver: the engine at Orleans. History of technology, 9, 38; W B Parsons (1939) Engineers and engineering in the Renaissance. Baltimore: Williams &

Wilkins, 1939, pp.116-117, fig.76, p.150; M N Boyer (1985) Resistance to technological innovation: the history of the pile driver through the eighteenth century. Technology and culture, vol.26, 1, 1985, pp.56-58; A Ramelli (1588) Le Diverse et artificiose machine, Chap.111-112, pp.171-174; C Meyer (1685) LArte di restruire a Roma la tralasciata navigatione de sue Tevere. Roma; B D de Belidor (1737-1753) Architecture hydraulique, 2 volumes in 4 parts. Paris; P Bullet (1691) Architecture pratique. Paris; L A De Cessart (1806) Travaux hydrauliques, 2 volumes. Paris, 1806. esp. volume 1, pp.47-224; J A Eytelwein. Praktische Anweisung zur

Wasserbaukunst. 4 volumes, 1802-1808 etc; H Gautier. Traite des ponts, various editions. Paris, 1714-. See chapters x-xviii; J H Lambert (1776) Sur la fluidite de

sables. Nouveaux memoirs de IAcademie Royale des Sciences, Berlin; J R Perronet (1782-1789). Description des projets et de la construction des ponts de Neuilli 1st, 2nd editions, 1782-1789. Includes his Memoire sur les pieux et pitotis; G A Semple (1776) Treatise on building in water, 1776; R Woltman (1799) Beytrage zur hydraulischen Architectur, 4 volumes. Gottingen, 4, pp.371-389); G Hagen (18631874) Handbuch der Wasserbauknst. Berlin; P Krapf (1906) Formeln und versucher uber die Tragfahigkeit engeramrater pfahle. Leipzig: Engelmann; J K T L Nash (1981) The foundations of London Bridge. Canadian geotechnical journal, volume 18, pp.331-356; J K T L Nash (1973) [Discussion on London Bridge]. ICE

Proceedings, volume 54, pp.726-732; T Ruddock (1979) Arch bridges and their builders. Cambridge, University Press; R J B Walker (1979) Old Westminster

Bridge. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1979; G G Lewis (1843) On the use of fascines in foundations of buildings, Professional papers Royal Engineers, 1st series, VI, 216-218

F2

Ties and anchorages

Iron may have been used at an early date to tie back retaining walls in preference to timber [____]

The most obvious application of iron for anchorages was in suspension bridges (see section ____) and their vulnerability to corrosion was a factor in the abandonment of widespread use of suspension bridges in France in the mid-nineteenth century. (Picon

Sir Marc Isambard Brunel made use of 8ft long flat wrought iron pins to help provide horizontal support for the poling boards an early use of soil nailing, in the Thames Tunnel in the 1830s [?fig.1]. (Muir Wood, 1994; Skempton and Chrimes, 1994). Wrought iron ties were used by railway engineers to anchor retaining walls and tunnel portals. The anchorages for the Kilsby Tunnel on the London-Birmingham Railway were 100 ft long (Simms, 1838) [fig.2]. On the same line struts were installed between the retaining walls in the approaches to Euston Station, and other examples of the use of cast iron arched ribs and beams for bracing can be found on the Metropolitan and District Railways [fig. __]. The failure of the cast iron sheet

piles used at Greenwich pier was attributed to the contractor (Grissell and Peto) failing to anchor the piles properly, although the design, with superincumbent masonry, may have been inherently unstable [fig.3]. A M Muir Wood (1994) ICE Procs Civ eng; A W Skempton and M M Chrimes (1994) Geotechnique

F3

Foundations in rock

As early as 1696 Winstanley dowelled his Edystone Lighthouse to the rocks using twelve iron bars of 3in diameter. A method of installing foundations in rock by the use of iron is described in some detail by Telford (1814) in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. The enterprising contractors Simpson and Cargill had to build a cofferdam for the Corpach Locks at the western entrance to the Caledonian Canal. To secure the main piles of the cofferdam iron dowels were installed in the bedrock. A wooden cylinder made up of 3in fir planks with an internal diameter of 22in and 8ft long was constructed, bound up with hoop iron and shod at the base with a circular iron shoe [fig.5]. It was fitted with iron clamps and eyes to permit raising and extraction using chains. The cylinder was positioned at low water beside a 30ft high pile engine and fitted with a 2ft ash cap, the bottom 6in of which were turned to fit inside the cylinder. Upon this was placed a 12in square pile, of the same length as the depth the cylinder was to be sunk into mud, and the whole was driven using a 1008lb ram.

A sand augur was used to clear the mud inside out of the cylinder regularly as it was sunk until the rock was reached. A frame was then inserted into the cylinder and sunk to its bottom; down a square hole in the middle of this frame a square pipe, 4x4in at the top and 3x3in at the bottom was driven down to the rock to clear any remaining sand using a 3in external diameter tube fitted with a valve. A jumper was then passed through the frame and worked by a lever on the scaffolding until a hole 2in diameter and 20 in deep had been bored into the rock, and a 2in square iron dowel was positioned in this cavity and driven in 18in into the rock. The frame having been secured the main pile, with a matching recess, was lowered onto the dowel, its end strengthened with iron, with external diameter made up to 22in to ensure a tight fit in the cylinder. The pile was driven on to the dowel and the cylinder then raised by a

lever and chain (T Telford (1814). Encyclopaedia).

Article on bridge practice, Edinburgh

Several early piers were founded on rock. At Gravesend Tierney Clark used cast iron shells to accurately position and drive cast iron piles into chalk (see section 8 below). At Margate driven cast iron piles and wrought iron screw piles were sunk 10ft into the chalk.

The short-lived pier at Westwood Ho! had cast iron piles of a form developed by the engineer J W Wilson for use in rock (J W Wilson, 1875) [fig. __] The piles were 1215ft in length and 11in external diameter at their base. The thickness of metal involved varied from 1in at the top to 4in at a depth of 16in in the rock reducing by again to 1in at the base. 13in diameter holes were bored by placing an iron cylinder 8ft long with an internal diameter of 14in, made in halves and jointed, over the site of the hole, secured in position to an outrigger. Within this cylinder the jumper worked to bore the hole [fig. ___]. The jumper had four wings with a point 6in in diameter, the shaft 3in in diameter, and total length 4ft 6in. Further lengths of 2in diameter rods were screwed into this, and connected via a shackle and chain to a rope and winch driven by a steam engine which enabled the raising and release of the jumper. Once the hole was of sufficient depth a diver was able to wedge in the pile, using doorways in the cylinder, with wrought iron wedges and concrete. The depth of water under which this operation was carried out varied between 6 and 40ft, and each socket would take up to a week to complete. Due to irregularities in the rock surface it was difficult to keep the cylinder in position and exclude debris excited by the action of the sea. Once in position the piles were filled with concrete. A special form of built up wrought iron column was used with these piles.

Bridge piers could be founded directly on rock, as at Crumlin, where the base column was cast with a base plate which could be bolted directly into the rock.

F6

Iron column supports for bridges and viaducts

The earliest cast iron bridges in Britain were arch designs with traditional masonry abutments, and some early examples had the ribs embedded in masonry without springing plates. In the inventive spirit of the era it was only a question of time before practical consideration was given to the use of iron in the supporting structure and raking struts were used for the Longdon aqueduct, and John Nashs patent of 1797 (2165) includes reference to iron columnar bridge piers. These were both preceded by Telfords proposal for iron columns to support Pont Cysslte Aqueduct. Thomas Wilson considered a two span cast iron arch bridge at Yarm with the central pier formed of cast iron columns (c.1804) before the single arch design was finalised. This columnar approach was finally adopted by James Walker for his bridge on the Barking Road across the River Lea (c.1811-1814), details of which are regrettably lacking. Rather better known is the Macclesfield Road Bridge over the Regents Canal in Regents Park (c.1816) [fig.9]. Although cast iron columns were used to support arcade style railway bridges in urban areas, most notably Hawkshaws colonnades on the Junction Railway in Manchester (Hawkshaw, 1852) [fig.10], little progress was made in the application of iron to subaqueous foundations until the development of Mitchells screw piles in the 1830s., and the more or less contemporary development of cylinder piers using Potts system and then compressed air. (See sections below). Iron instead generally rested on traditional foundations.

Sources

J Hawkshaw (1852) Description of a cast iron viaduct, or colonnade, constructed at Salford, Min Procs., ICE, 11, 241-243.

F6.1

Foundations for iron viaducts on land

Perhaps the most extensive form of the arcade-style railway in the UK was the Liverpool Overhead Railway system, modelled on the New York Elevated Railway system. The Railway, designed by Sir Douglas Fox and J H Greathead with F Huddleston one of the contractors staff, and G A Hobson helping in the design, was opened in 1893. It extended over six miles from Dingle to Seaforth along the line of the dock road, and was intended to deal particularly with the congestion of dock and

passenger traffic immediately inland of the docks. The structure was founded on rock or concrete blocks, designed for a maximum load on the base of 1 ton/ft2, and test loaded to 1.5 times the greatest working load. The supporting columns of the viaduct were built up riveted steel box columns grouted into cast iron sockets bedded and bolted into the concrete blocks, with concrete bumpers to protect the columns against collision. Spans varied 30-98ft; most were 50ft plate girders. (J H Greathead and F Fox (1893-1894) The Liverpool overhead railway. Minutes of Proceedings, ICE, 117, 51-144; ills).

The availability of iron for piers affected the design of bridges in a number of ways. In comparison with masonry iron piers could be quicker to erect and also provide a lighter load for a required strength in weaker soils - a factor which became important when Bouch was obliged to alter the design of his piers for the Tay Bridge (see below). It was estimated that the load of the Crumlin Viaduct piers in iron was 600 tons in comparison with an estimated 3,300 tons if they had been made of masonry (Maynard, 1868). The ironwork contractors were keen to extol the virtues of ease of erection of iron piers particularly with their eyes on the export market. The total cost of the pier themselves also affected the overall spans. With deeper valleys the cost of the piers was corresponding more, and longer spans more economic.

The now demolished Crumlin Viaduct was perhaps the archetypal example of a British iron girder viaduct supported on iron bridge piers. The piers varied in height, but a typical 170ft height pier comprised 14 hollow cast iron columns, 12in in diameter, arranged as a hexagon, with the iron of the two outermost columns 1in thick, and the remainder in. Each column was built up of 13 10ft lengths, with the bottom comprising a 2ft 3in column with a 3ft square base plate and feathers to spread the load. It was anchored to the rock with 12in long bolts secured by pouring in molten brimstone. At joints there was horizontal bracings of wrought iron

diagonal ties with cast iron spacers, the columns being cast octagonally to receive this, and vertical wrought iron bracing 4in wide [fig.____].

Light construction of this type was the characteristic of Thomas Bouch. The design of the superstructure of viaducts such as that at Beelah was worked out by Bow

c.1855. The viaduct had 15 piers of varying heights supporting 60ft spans of lattice girders. (Humber) The piers were made up of 6 tapered hollow columns in the form of a tapered trapezium, braced with cross girders every 15ft and with horizontal and diagonal wrought iron ties. The columns, 12in in diameter, at 50ft centres at the base, tapered to 22ft centres at the top. The taper was provided in the foundation piece, bolted into a stone base, angled to produce the taper [fig. ___].

There are two surviving wrought iron viaducts of the Crumlin type, those at Meldon and Bennerley. Bennerley is intended for conversion to a cycleyway. It comprises 16 wrought iron spans of 77ft supported on piers of groups of 10 vertical wrought iron tubes, with a raking tube on each end and wrought iron cross bracing. The

foundations are of concrete capped with brickwork and gritstone [fig.__]. At Meldon there are two parallel viaducts of 1874 and 1879 of 2 90ft Warren girder spans supported on piers varying from 48 to 20ft in height formed of four wrought iron columns founded on 24ft wide masonry bases. The columns are made up of 10ft 6in lengths in 6 parts riveted longitudinally braced horizontally and vertically at each joint. The 1874 viaduct was strengthened in 1959 with additional bracing and collars around the columns. [HEW 270] [HEW 120] (Engineer, 19 October 1877)

Concrete filled columns

Concrete was regularly used in combination with cylinder foundations (see below)

Staithes viaduct (693ft long) was another lightweight structure, designed by the contractor John Dixon, on the Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway (1873) and built by Skerne ironworks. Six Warren truss girder spans of 60ft were supported on concrete filled wrought iron piers up to 152ft in height. These columns were 5/10in thick and varied from 3ft 6in diameter at the base to 2ft 6in at the top. There were 30ft span plate girder side spans similarly supported. Similar structures were erected on the same line at Sandsend, East Row, Newholm and Upgang. Foundations at Staithes, in shale or stiff clay, were 3-4ft deep, 6-12ft diameter portland cement concrete blocks, shaped to receive cast iron base plates for the columns. The plates and the bases of the columns were covered in concrete above

ground level. The viaduct was designed using a wind pressure of 28lb/ft2. Dixon estimated the costs of the Staithes type columns were about half that of the clustered supports at Crumlin.

Sources

J Dixon (1875) The Staithes viaduct, London, Whitby; W R L Forrest (1896-1897) Strengthening the East Row and Upgang viaducts on the Whitby and Loftus Railway, Min Procs., ICE, 130, 234-240; E Hutchinson (1879) Girder making at the Skerne ironworks, 105-113

Driven bearing piles

The use of iron for piles is normally associated with sheet piling and screw piles, both discussed below, but iron piles were driven, on occasion into rock (see above) for foundations rather than retaining/water excluding structures, although such applications are not as well documented. Examples include the foundations of seaside piers (below), and Solway Viaduct but it is unclear when they were first used as bearing piles for building structures.

At Solway (1869, damaged, 1875, 1881) unlike other estuarine crossings driven piles-1224 of cast iron-were used for the foundations of the piers which comprised 5 braced columns supporting 30ft span plate girders. The engineer, Brunlees, had originally intended to use screw piles, by then a well-established technique, but a hard stratum of gravel bound by stiff clay was discovered 4 ft below the sand, and the 12 in diameter piles of 20 ft length were driven using a timber dolly to absorb some of the shock of driving (Brunlees and Eckersley, 1868) [Transporter bridges] [Minutes of Proceedings, 230, 125-142, 17, 442-445, Corrosion endorsed brickwork].

Possibly the earliest examples were of concrete filled columns as used at. Generally however it seems timber continued to be used for bearing piles in the UK until the earliest twentieth century when it began to be replaced by reinforced concrete. In the United States once steel sections became widely available they were used for bearing

piles , and it seems unlikely that UK and continental engineers did not on occasion use similar, unrecorded, expedients, especially as other uses of iron for foundations are so well known over the previous 80 years.

It appears American engineers first started using I sections for foundations in the 1890s; an early example was for a bridge in Nebraska where traditional piled foundations were being undermined by scour in the gravel river bed, but the steel piles could be driven deeper, beneath the scouring effect. In 1908 Bethlehem Steel introduced the stronger H section, which could be driven into hard ground, and resisted scouring action and also ice loads. The idea caught on, and by 1932 10,000 bridges had been erected in the western states using H piles, generally as trestle supports, but also for bridge abutments, especially in hard ground (Durkee and McIntosh, 1937) In the 1930s such piles gained more general acceptance, and they were used, for example, in Norway at this time.

There is little evidence in section books, piling handbooks, or the literature for widespread use in the UK before the Second World War. The 1948 Appleby Frodingham handbook for example suggests they were suitable for very hard driving and emergencies when reinforced concrete piles were unavailable. More recently their use has been encouraged by the steel industry, and H piles and box sections, a development of sheet profiles, are familiar to most engineers (Anon(1932) Steel-pile foundations in Nebraska, Civil engineering, 2, 553-; J Brunlees, and W Eckersley (1868) Discussion on Supporting power of piles, Min Procs ICE, 309-319;A.B. Carson (1965) Foundation construction, 154-157; R D Chellis (1961) Pile foundations; Cornfield (1974-199) Steel bearing piles, 4 eds.Constrado and SCI; E.L. Durkee and R.C. McIntosh (1937) Structural steel bearing piles: their use and capacity, Boston Soc Civil Engineers Jnl, 24, 78-104; H S Jacoby and R P Davis (1941) Foundations of bridges and buildings, Mcgraw Hill, 198-215; Highway engineer, July 1953; Little comp (1961) Foundations, 145-154; NGI 125

Subaqueous foundations

F5

Iron sheet piles

The use of timber sheet pile walls is of ancient origin and, the use of interlocking sheet piles for a cofferdam is a feature of one of the earliest printed technical books (Ramelli, 1588). In Britain the importance of a barrier of interlocking sheet piles was recognised around 1700 (Perry, 1721) by John Perry, and used at Dagenham Breach. His assistant John Reynolds specialised in such work, and details of his sluice work at Chester are known [fig]. The idea of using iron rather than timber for piles was apparently first considered by John Nash in his 1797 bridge patent (Patent 2165), but no practical application of iron in this way is recorded until around 1820 when David Matthews made use of them when constructing the foundations of the North Pier at Bridlington Harbour (Borthwick, 1836). Shortly afterwards Peter Ewart (Ewart,

1822), in 1822, patented a method of using sheet piles for cofferdams, thinking of them for temporary works. His idea was employed by W C Mylne at Broken Wharf, in London, and by Jesse Hartley, a protg of Ewarts, at Georges Dock Basin in Liverpool. A plan and elevation of a Ewart-style cofferdam is shown in [fig.4a], with the sheet piles united by cramps of cast iron. Both Ewart and Matthews were known to James Walker, and it was under his influence that iron sheet piling was more extensively adopted, initially for foundations at Downs Wharf near the site of St Katharines Dock in 1824 and more importantly for permanent works at Brunswick Wharf on the river front at Blackwall where they formed a wall 720ft in length backed by concrete [fig.4b].

Work began at Blackwall in March 1833. A trench was dredged to low water level along the line of the wharf and timber piles driven to which two rows of walings were attached to serve as guides for the main iron piles. These were cast in two parts to facilitate handling, with the lower, 25ft length, driven into the river bed at 7ft centres, and the upper 12ft length bolted on. The sheet piles, 22ft long, were then driven in the bays between the main piles and bolted on to the upper waling. The upper 14ft of the wharf was made up of three iron plates spanning between the main piles. The wall was anchored with land ties before being backed with in-situ concrete. The contractor was Hugh McIntosh and ironwork supplied by Horseley and Birtley Ironworks (Borthwick; Skempton, 1981-1982).

The piles at Brunswick Wharf were driven by a 13-15 ram with a fall of 3ft 6in. or less, using a crab engine, taking care to avoid any great stress. Only 5 out of c.600 piles were broken in driving. Part of the wharf failed c.1903; the backing concrete appears to have broken up [fig.____].

In 1832 Cubitt used 30ft long sheet piles, T shaped in section, with a tapering back flange, for 200ft of wharfing at the sea entrance to the Norwich and Lowestoft navigation (4c). These piles were contiguous rather than interlocking and to guide the driving of piles a wrought iron cheek projecting about 2-3in was riveted to the bottom end of each new pile to guide it alongside the driven piles. At Limehouse in 1832 Sibley used oval hollow piles with two sets of grooves into which 9ft flat plates could be let at 10ft centres [fig.4d]. An augur was introduced through the hollow core to bore out the ground and facilitate driving, and the piles were afterwards filled with concrete. Sheet piles were used here following the failure of a wharf whose

foundations had been undermined by dredging at Limehouse Cut. It was felt that by using this method of permanent formwork backed by 6ft of lime concrete the need for using a cofferdam and rebuilding the wharf would be avoided and no obstruction to the navigation caused. (Sibley, 1832). This system was also used on the North and South shores of the Thames adjacent to the new London Bridge. The Brunswick wharf system was used at Deptford Creek (Simms, 1838). The use of cast iron sheet piles was also specified on the London Birmingham Railway at much the same time.(Brees, 1838). One suspects cast iron sheet piles were regularly used along the Thames for small wharves by engineers such as J B Redman in the first half of the century.

At Victoria Docks entrance (c.1854-1855) (Kingsbury, 1858-1859) cast iron sheet piles were used in a similar way to Blackwall (and Fleetwood Harbour), no doubt influenced by the fact G P Bidder, engineer for the Docks had worked at Blackwall and Fleetwood [fig.4.e]. The cast iron piling comprised bays at 7ft 1in centres from centre of main pile to main pile, with three cast iron horizontal plates at the top and 4 cast iron sheet piles beneath, and main piles again made up of two lengths, the whole again backed by concrete. In June 1855, when this work was complete, although work on the docks was continuing, the entrance lock walls failed, probably due to

changing ground water levels caused by the works. The piles were redriven to a greater depth of 5ft into the clay, and the concrete wall carried up from 3ft into the clay, with a thickness of 18ft for the first 18ft of depth, and then successively thinner sections [fig.4.e].

At both Westminster and Chelsea Bridge the Engineer Thomas Page used a similar construction of cast iron cofferdams employing hollow cast iron main piles between which were placed cast iron plates, the space enclosed being dredged to the gravel, and timber bearing piles being driven and the cofferdam filled with concrete and stone landings.

A surprisingly late application of cast iron sheet piles was for Egyptian barrage works by British engineers at the start of the twentieth century. On Benjamin Bakers recommendation the foundations of the Asyut Barrage (1898-1902) included cast iron sheet piles with tongued and grooved ends driven beneath the floor of the barrage, the joints being designed to permit grouting up with cement once installed [fig.4.f]. This method was used in preference to well foundations as it was felt the piling could be made watertight under ground conditions amounting to quicksand (Stephens, 1904). Similar methods were used for the Esna Barrage.

Despite these well-documented uses of cast iron sheet piling it is unclear how widely it was used through the nineteenth century, whilst there is abundant evidence of the continuing use of timber for cofferdams and other temporary works. For instance of the three Thames embankments built to the designs of Sir Joseph Bazalgette c.18631870, only Furnesss No.1 contract on the Victoria Embankment was built making extensive use of iron for the temporary works. The other Victoria Embankment contracts (Nos.2 and 3) and those for Chelsea and Albert Embankments all relied on various forms of timber cofferdams and sheet pile walls, although Edward Bazalgette believed the iron temporary works were cheaper. (Bazalgette, ____)

The Embankment as executed comprised a granite faced brick wall with a slightly curved batter, with Portland cement concrete foundations and backing. For No.1 contract, where ground conditions were difficult, and there were concerns about

piling in the vicinity of neighbouring structures, Bazalgette suggested the use of iron caisson cofferdams, parts of which could be reused. The caissons were built up from wrought iron oval half rings with upright flanges at each end so they could be bolted together to form a 12ft 6in x 7ft caisson 4ft 6in deep. The plates were in-in thick. The lowest rings were of cast iron with a cutting edge to facilitate sinking. To make the cofferdam watertight a cast iron grove was bolted to the flanges at each end of the caisson down which guide piles could be driven. In the event this arrangement was unsuccessful, and guide piles were used during sinking, and adjacent caissons bolted together. For the upper part of the dam only half rings were used, with the convex face forming the river wall.

The caissons were sunk by excavation to a depth of at least 4ft into London clay (between -33.15 and -17.09ft below OD) weighted down by iron blocks 9cwt each (.45 tons) cast in the shape of the rings piled on timber. 187ft of 2,440 timber foot of excavation was carried out under compressed air. Sluices were built into the caissons just above low water to permit pumping: 195 caissons were used in the contract, the base remaining as permanent formwork, filled with concrete to a depth of c.14ft. Behind the caisson wall timber whaling supported the main excavation. For the work around the pier of Waterloo Bridge a permanent cofferdam of ribbed cast iron plates fitted in grooves between cast iron screw piles at c.5ft centres was used. Within this other excavation around the pier was filled with concrete and faced with brick and granite.

The use of wrought iron in the Embankment reflects its increasing use in engineering. However, there is little evidence of its use for sheet piling. Although some patents were taken out, such as that of Jeffreys (Jeffreys, ____), and a whole range of shapes were being rolled for ships, the concept of an interlocking sheet pile wall as anticipated by Ewart, and so familiar to modern engineers in steel, with its advantages of watertightness and strength, appears to have been neglected. Presumably

traditional temporary works, and fabricated cylinders were found to answer and there was no great commercial pressure to explore new forms before the advent of steel, Britain then seems to have followed the lead from overseas.

Possibly the first use of rolled steel joists for sheet piling in the British Isles was for c.5,400ft of the Outer barrier at Hodbarrow c.1904(?) (Bidwell, 1906) [fig.4.9] The basic cut-off comprised a puddled trench where clay was at or near the surface, a timber sheet pile wall where the piles could reach the clay easily, and steel sheet piles where the clay was absent or difficult to reach. After testing two arrangements, a sheet piling system was adopted using H joists, 9in x 7in, in thick, and 31ft 6in or 34ft 6in long., with jaws of angle bars riveted on the flanges between which were driven in thick, stiffened steel plates 2ft wide with cast steel driving levels. Water jets were used to help with the driving. The engineers, Coodes, and contractors, Airds had used wrought iron sheet piling on a similar system for the original barrier before 1890.

By the time of Hodbarrow (2) steel was being widely produced. One of the earliest documented examples of its use for sheet piles was at Bremen in 1895, where rolled steel channels were interconnected by steel joists. In 1897 the Larrsen pile was first used at the same port. (Handbach; Wilhelms, 1910). Other early continental sections were based on the US Vanderkloof, and Behrend profiles (Esselburn, 1910).

In the United States a series of interlocking steel piles systems were developed in the opening years of the century (Anon a & b, 1905, Woodworth, 1909). The Jackson system was a development of the German patent of August Simon (1893) which originally involved applying steel driven piles for lining (tubbing) mineshafts. George A Jackson used it at Randolph Street Bridge, Chicago in 1901. Luther P Freistedt introduced (1899) a form of interlock between steel channels using Z bars when he encountered quicksand in a foundation contract in Chicago; the normal timber sheeting failed. He developed the idea which was patented in 1902 (US 707837). The Freistedt system was exported to Britain and her colonies -

Simonstown, Singapore, and a large amount was employed at Buccleuch Dock. The original system had a weakness in that only every other pile had Z bars; the intervening pile was weaker and liable to buckle, as W G Fargo discovered on a dam at Grand Rapids, Michigan, and consequently developed his own system. Freistedt and others made further modifications. Another early system, patented by Mathias R Vanderkloot in 1904, proved very expensive to produce and was soon abandoned.

The most popular early US section was a development of Dodges 1870 patent for tunnel linings by Samuel K Behrend of 1889, which became known as United States Sheet Piling. The Lackawanna profile was developed by Boardman and first rolled by the Company successfully in 1908. In those early developments, while there was some appreciation of the need for a satisfactory interlock for strength and water tightness, as well as sufficient stiffness to sustain the driving operation, manufacture was a major practical consideration. Somewhat surprisingly the better known British steel producers do not appear to have participated in this trend, the only references in the early section books to foundations being to grillages, dealt with elsewhere (where?). (Redpath Brown Handbook, 1913; 1915; 1928; 1938 eds; Dorman Long Handbook, 1895; 1924; Pocket Companion, 1913; 1915 eds; R A Skelton Handbook, no.16, 1915; Carnegie Steel Company Pocket Companion, 1913; Hall and Pickles).

It is unclear which specially formed steel sheet pile system was first to be produced in Britain, although Cargo Fleet were involved in a 1905 patent, which may not have gone into production. However, after the First World War the French were able to obtain stocks of Ransome, Annison and Lackawanna profiles from the US and UK, and the Universal system from Germany (Claise, 1921). BSP, who are generally associated with Larrsen piles were not offering these until the 1930s, but only Universal and their own (1912) Simplex profiles (BSP, 1920) [figs.__]. Larrsen piles were first imported in 1926 for use at a wharf in Shoreham Harbour (Mackay, 1971), and were extensively used, along with Universal sections in the Nag Hammadi barrage in Egypt (1927) by Sir John Jackson and Company (BSP, 1929). Early uses in the UK seem to have been on a smaller scale, for river and canal works, and sea defence works, as at Wallasey and Newquay (BSP, 1940). Larsen profiles were produced exclusively by Cargo Fleet Iron Company, subsequently the South Durham Steel and Iron Company from 1929. In the late 1930s other sections being produced included Krupps and Universal (Kempe, 193_; Dorman Long, 1938), and Appleby Frodingham were also producing their sheet pile sections (Skelton, Larrsen) using the Hoesch system from 1937. This was a development of the Z section or lamp wall system introduced in Belgium in 1913; the German association led to the Frodingham mark being adopted in the Second World War.

Early handbooks provided little information on design apart from the properties of the sections, but from the 1940s more guidance was provided on earth and water pressure, BSP using Rankines theory (BSP, 1940), and Appleby Frodingham (1948) developing both Rankine and Coulombs theories. In the post-war period the design and installation of sheet piling work has attracted the attentions of engineers like P W Rowe, Terzaghi and others and an extensive literature has resulted (CIRIA ____), with alternative design methods available (Potts ____).

Sources

Algoma Steel Corporation (1942) Algoma steel sheet piling; Anon (1865) Jennings mode of constructing caissons, cofferdams, etc. The Engineer, 19, 43; Anon (1905a) American steel sheet piling. The Engineer, 100, 435-436; Anon (1905b) Steel sheet piling. Engineering record, 23 November, 545-546; Anon (1906) Palplanches

metalliques, systeme Krupp. Genie civil, 49, 109 (Zentralblatt der Bauwerwaltung, 4 April 1906); Appleby Frodingham (1948) Steel sheet piling; E. Bazalgette(187778)The Victoria, Albert and Chelsea embankments, Min Procs ICE, 54, 1-60;H S Bidwell (1906) Outer barrier, Hodbarrow iron mines, Millon, Cumberland. Min Procs., ICE, 165, 165-173, 193; M A Borthwick (1836) Memoire on the use of cast iron in piling, particularly at Brunswick Wharf, Blackwall. ICE Trans., 1, 195-206; S.C Brees(1838) Railway practice, 1st series; British Steel Piling Company (1920) BSP pocketbook; British Steel Piling Company (c.1929) Nag Hammadi barrage; British Steel Piling Company (c.1940) Larsen sheet piling. BSP publication, 173; British Steel Piling Company (c.1940) The durability of Larsen steel piling. BSP publication, 176; British Steel Piling Company (1940) BSP pocketbook, 5th ed.; Candrelier (1913) Emploi des palplanches sur les chantiers de la Compagnie Parisienne de Distribution dElectricite. Annales des Ponts et Chaussees, 17, 445453; Dorman Long (1938) Handbook, 125-129; K Esselborn (1910) Lehrbuch des Tiefbaues, 4 Aufl, Band I (Leipzig, Engelmann), 149; P Ewart (1822) Specification for a new method of making a cofferdam. Repertory of arts and manufacturers, 2, 43, 193-202 and plate 9; C E Fowler (1914) A practical treatise on subaqueous foundations, 156-178; O Franzius (1927) Der Grundbau (Berlin, Springer), 86-93; P

Frick (1926) Fouilles et fondations.

; Handbuch der Ingenieur Wissenschaften

(1884), 2 Aufl, 1, 2, 329-334; Handbuch der Ingenieur Wissenschaften (1906), 4 Aufl, I, 3,45; K E Hilgard (____) Neue Querschmittsformen fur eiserne Spundwande. Schweizersche Bauzeitung, 45, 224-228; H R Kempe (1923) Engineers yearbook, 505-509; W J Kingsbury (1858-1859) Description of the entrance lock, and jetty works of the Victorian (London) Docks, ICE Mins Procs., 18, 447; F R Mackley (1971) A history of sheet piling. ICE Southern Association, Chairmans address; J Perry (1721) An Account of the stopping of Dagenham Breach (London, T Tooke); A Ramelli (1588) Le diverse et artificiose machine, Chap 111-112, pp.171-174; T P Roberts (1905) Construction of cofferdams, Engineering news, 10 August; R Sibley (1832) Motives which induced the adoption of cast iron piles and panels to face the wharf of the lead works at Limehouse, ICE Original communication, 140, ICE archives; Sidelor (c.1952) Steel sheet piling: Rombas, Lansea, Lackawanna; Sidelor (c.1957) Steel sheet piling, 2nd ed.; A W Skempton (1981-1982) Engineering in the Port of London, Trans Newc Soc.,; R A Skelton (1944) Handbook no.22, 3rd ed., 165-169; South Durham Steel and Iron Company (1956) Larssen piling pocketbook for site engineers; South Durham Steel and Iron Company (c.1960) Larssen piling pocketbook for site engineers; G H Stephens (1904) The barrage across the Nile at Asyut, ICE Min Procs., 158, 30-36; 71, plate 2; J Wilhelmi (1910) Die eiserne Spundwand von Larssen, VDI-Zeitschrift, 2094-2098; R B Woodworth (1909) Steel sheeting and steel piling, ASCE Trans., 64, 476Description of the cofferdams used in the execution of no. 2 contract of the Thames embankment Min procs ICE, 31, -32

Sheet pile structures: further reading

K Terzaghi (1954) Anchored bulkheads, ASCE Trans., 119, 1243-1324; K Terzaghi (1944) Stability and stiffness of cellular cofferdams, ASCE Trans., 110, 1083-1202; Belz, C A (1970) Cellular structure design methods; E M Cummings (1960) Cellular cofferdams and docks, ASCE Trans., 125, 13-45; Tennessee Valley Authority (1957) Steel sheet piling cellular cofferdams on rock, TVA technical monograph, 75; H Y Fang and T D Dismuke (1970) Design and installation of pile foundations and cellular structures, Lehigh, Envo; M Rossow, et al (1987) Theoretical manual for design of

cellular pile structures, USWES technical report, ITL, 85-5; G P Tsinker. Anchored sheet pile bulkheads: design practice, ASCE Journal of geotechnical engineering, 109, GT8, 1021-1038; P W Rowe (1952) Anchored sheet pile walls, ICE Procs, I, 1, 27-70; EAU 1990 (1992) Recommendations of the Committee for Waterfront Structures, Harbours and Waterways, 6th English ed., Berlin, Ernst, 1992; S Packshaw (1933) Civil engineering; B P Williams and D Waite (1993) The design and construction of sheet-piled cofferdams, CIRIA SP95; R L Mosher. Three dimensional finite element analysis of sheet-pile cellular cofferdams, USWES report TR ITL-92-1; R A Day and D M Potts (1989) A comparison of design methods for propped sheet pile walls, SCI publication 77; J B Hansen (1953) Earth pressure calculations; United States Corps of Engineers (1996) Design of sheet pile walls, ASCE, NY,3; J P R N Stroyer (19271928) Earth pressure in flexible walls, Min Procs., ICE, 226, 94- (include Downpatrick?); Recent developments in caisson design are provided by Tomlinson; M J Tomlinson (1995) Foundation design and construction, 6th ed. Longman: Harlow, 232-264

F9

Cast iron cylinder foundations

Cylinder foundations were developed in the nineteenth century using, initially, cast iron for a prefabricated/precast foundation of cylindrical form sunk rather than driven into position. They were normally of cast iron and filled with brickwork or (latterly portland cement) concrete, which was intended to support the superstructure of a bridge. Diameters varied from 4ft up to 21ft, in rings 6 to 9ft in length. By the 1890s design tables were available relating to weights, loads and diameters and thickness of cylinder (Newman, 1893).

Nash (Nash,17xx) had suggested cylinders as a rather unstable form of enclosure for bridge piers, but the first practical example of cast iron cylinders rather than piles for foundations appears to have been developed c.1842 by J B Redman for the foundations of the Royal Terrace Pier, Gravesend (Redman, 1845). The pier was erected 1842-1844. The work reveals how difficult this type of construction could be, and how important subsequent developments were in facilitating the process. The contract, with Fox Henderson, commenced in 1843, was for a pier 250ft long with a

T head 90ft x 30ft. It was, in a manner echoing Gravesend Town Pier, supported on 22 Doric columns of cast iron and cast iron beams with timber joists and deck. The columns were 22ft long, arranged in rows of 3 at 22ft centres, with their bases at low water level, caps 8ft above spring high water. The first row of foundations were of brick carried down to chalk some 25ft below ground level and 21ft below datum. The next row of foundations comprised 6ft diameter cylinder, of 4 segmental plates bolted together, and sunk through the river bed by excavating the cylinders from within and loading the cylinders to force them down. Problems were experienced in keeping these cylinders vertical and the next row used 7ft diameter cylinders externally which were secured at half the planned depth, and the permanent cylinders sunk within these. Well-sinking techniques employing misering tools were used, and one of the cylinders blew.

Once the cylinder was at the required depth (c.5ft below the bed) the base was levelled off, and a floor of dry bricks laid followed by a bed of roman cement and tiles; within this floor a cast iron cross was bedded with a wrought iron holding down bolt through it. The brickwork was built up around the bolt leaving a space so it could be kept vertical until the capping level was reached. The brickwork was capped in stone through which the bolt passed and was attached to another cast iron cross within the cast iron column which was thus held down in position. Unfortunately, after about 20 years the pier fell into the hands of the Receiver, and suffered 30 years neglect until 1893 when it was repaired and extended with subscriptions from Thames Pilots. It was possibly as a result of his visit to this site that Dr L H Potts developed his patent (9975, 1843) for Improvements in the construction of piers, embankments, breakwaters, and other similar structures.

Lawrence Holker Potts (1789-1850) was a surgeon who turned his mind to inventions. For around 25 years he practised in Cornwall and probably observed the sinking of mine shafts offshore. [f below] After his move to the London area in 1837 he witnessed early experiments with Mitchells screw piles. Following this he developed his method for sinking foundations, which involved sinking iron cylinders, open at the base, but sealed at the top by a cap [fig.__] (Potts, 1847). A partial vacuum was created within the cylinder by means of a pump and by atmospheric pressure sand,

silt, shingle, etc., were sucked up into the cylinder, the pressure of water from below broke up the river or sea bed and undermined the edge of the pile cylinder which then sank by its own gravity combined with atmospheric pressure on the closed end. When filled the cylinder was emptied by a pump. As the cylinder descended the cap was removed and a fresh length added. In 1844 Potts publicised his invention at the Harbours of Refuge Inquiry (Potts, 1844).

The potential of the system was immediately recognised by James Walker and Alexander Mitchell. As with screw piles some of the first experiments were carried out with offshore beacons. A trial was carried out with a 2ft 6in diameter tube on Goodwin Sands in July 1845. Following this success a similar diameter cylinder was used as the foundation for a braced beacon on the Sands in 1847, which was destroyed in a storm. (Anon, 1845, Findley, 1847).

Potts system was adopted by contractors Fox Henderson after considerable investment in developing suitable equipment, and used for the foundations of bridges at Black Potts (Windsor), Huntingdon and Peterborough. The first use was on Betts contract on the Chester-Holyhead Railway for a viaduct in Anglesey. The

foundations here comprised nineteen 1ft diameter tubes 16ft long. Although early applications were successful problems were experienced sinking larger diameter cylinders in unsuitable ground. There were problems at Peterborough, with cast iron caissons 6 ft x 20ft long, and sinking was completed by pumping and excavation in the usual way. The Potts system had to be abandoned for the Athlone Bridge, 10ft diameter. Most famously at Rochester (1851-1852) Foxs site agent reversed the process when the sinking process jammed, and introduced compressed air working. (see ______) The foundations for the piers comprised 14 cylinders 6ft 11in in

diameter. Similarly I K Brunel abandoned the Potts process for Chepstow Railway Bridge (____) and resorted to compressed air when one of the cylinders hit a tree.

Pneumatic or compressed air working was not always necessary. When converting Brunels Hungerford Bridge for Railway use Hawkshaw reused the masonry piers, and intoduced additional piers of cast iron cylinders (Hayter, 1863)(fig).The majority were 14 ft diameter below, and 10 ft diameter above ground, made up of respectively

7 or 5 segments 9 ft high, with conical pieces in 5 segments between. They were bolted together using internal flanges sealed with iron cement. They were sunk from staging into the bed of mud and gravel overlaying London Clay by divers excavating from within, and weighting the cylinders down as excavation proceeded down into the London Clay, wnen, after a few feet the excavation could be pumped dry. Once the cylinders had been filled with concrete up to the conical section, with brickwork above, to high water mark the foundations were preloaded to observe settlement. Once complted each set of cylinders was linked by wrought iron box girders which also supported the trackway.

Lambeth Bridge is relatively well known for its use of (12ft diameter) cast iron segmental cylinders for the piers supporting its suspension towers. The cylinders were also sunk by weighting down and internal excavation and filled with concrete and brickwork. Rather more unusual was the use of caissons of 12 boxes of cast iron 8ft x 10 ft 8 in, bolted together in 3 tiers, enclosing an area 48ft x 32 ft, the interior spac 32 ft x 16 ft being filled with concrete. These were used on the Westminster shore due to poor ground, and supported an abutment comprising a ring of brickwork 8 ft thick (fig) (W.Humber, 1863). Cast iron was still usual for cylinder foundations at this time and although Brunel used wrought iron at Saltash this was for a caisson, and cast iron continued to be used for cylinders down to the end of the century by engineers, including Benjamin Baker at Barrow on the Rosslare line (1906).

An alternative form of bridge pier was patented by E W Hughes, an Engineer who worked with Sir John Hawkshaw and Benjamin Piercy. His patent (102) of 1862 for cylinders and tubes described round, octagonal and hexagonal wrought iron piers. A road bridge near Rhyl built by the Worcester Engine Works used his wrought iron riveted columns of 18in diameter (Mechanics magazine, 9, 1863, 361), and the Wye Railway bridge at Whitney, Herefordshire, had two sets of piers of six of his hexagonal riveted wrought iron columns braced together by wrought iron diagonal flat bars and tie rods, attached to screw piles driven 12-20ft into the river bed (Matheson, 1873).

When Thomas Bouch designed the Tay Railway Bridge he had established a reputation for economical bridge design, and this approach governed his design. His initial design was based upon the results of a site investigation by Jesse Wylie, which claimed to find a bed of rock all the way across the estuary except for 250 yards on the northern side - an insignificant proportion of what was intended as a viaduct 3,450 yards long. With this reassurance, Bouch designed a viaduct of 89 spans of lattice girders supported on brick piers of 9ft 6in or 13ft 6in diameter, with the exception of the northern end where, because of the ground conditions, a lighter form of cast iron columns braced with wrought iron ties was chosen. The piers were to be founded on cylinders sunk to the rock foundation, lined with brick and filled with concrete. It was intended that the foundations would be excavated in wrought iron caissons, of ____ diameter, with a bell-shaped base, and work on the brick piers began.

The contracting engineer Albert Grothe was confident of the stability of the foundations and calculated the load on the piers from the superstructure would never exceed 6 tons/ft2 whilst the concrete was capable of sustaining a total of 80 tons/ft2. He also believed it would require a wind loading of 90 tons/ft2 at the tops of the piers to overturn them - compared with the estimated 42 tons/ft2 of a typhoon. Whether this was true or not became academic when in 1873 it was discovered while working on the fourteenth pier that rather than rock a thin, if hard, bed of gravel conglomerate was present, with only mud beneath. Moreover, attempts to found the first piers at the north end were also unsuccessful.

Bouch redesigned the foundation to increase the area of the base, and thus reduce the load from 6.5 tons/ft2 to 4.5 tons/ft2, using concrete filled caissons. Unfortunately when Allen Stewart calculated the bearing capacity of the ground he realised the load had to be reduced to 2.75 tons/ft2, which could only be achieved by a total redesign of the piers. Enlarged caissons were used, originally intended for 8 cast iron columns, but in practice only 6 could be accommodated, which were arranged in a hexagon on a hexagonal masonry pier capped by a cast iron plate. The columns were 15in and 18in diameter cast in 10ft lengths and bolted together through flanges, and bolted down to the base with holding down bolts with a capacity of 200 tons. Lugs were cast with the columns for diagonal wrought iron bracing ties. The piers were founded

upon concrete bases over 30ft in diameter, and specialist Dutch piling contractors were brought in to help. A pump was specially designed to help with the excavation within the caissons. To help with the costs the number of piers was reduced. The cast iron columns were based at a level 5ft above spring high tide levels to reduce the risk of corrosion.

Although safely completed the subsequent fate of the bridge is well known and the inadequacy of the cast iron column design for the fatal wind loads has been demonstrated in recent investigations. The consequent rebuild provided greatest

contrast in the foundation and pier construction, as many of the bridge girders were re-used [fig. of photo of vols].

William Henry Barlow, who was appointed engineer for the replacement bridge, organised research into the effects of scour on the original bridge which revealed the foundations were not deep enough in some places. More detailed site investigations revealed a section of 900ft in breadth over the centre of the estuary where the river bed was silty sand with beds of gravel. To investigate the bearing capacity of the bed one of the old piers was test loaded with 3.5 tons/ft2 and settlement of 2in was observed in micaeous sand. A trial cylinder filled with concrete was then sunk to a length of 20ft in the worst area of silty sand, and loaded to 7 tons/ft2, after an initial settlement of 5in no further settlement was observed for 3 months.

The new viaduct was a 10,711ft long, with 85 piers, 60ft upstream of the original structure, with piers located in line with the old structure. The most obvious design difference was for a double track structure, but the foundations are radically different. Because of design changes the original foundations took a variety of forms. The new foundations were 16.5ft diameter wrought iron cylinders belled out at the base to 23ft, filled with concrete and brickwork. At 1ft 6in above high water the cylinders were joined by a concrete and brickwork beam 7ft deep on cast iron supports, which in turn supported a wrought iron frame which acted as the base for the wrought iron plate piers - two octagonal columns with a connecting arch beneath the superstructure [fig. ____].

The Tay Bridge was only one of a number of viaducts built across wide estuaries in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Severn Railway Bridge erected 18751879 and designed by G W Keeling and G W Owen, had an overall length of 4162ft and comprised 22 main spans, the widest of 327ft and was intended for single line traffic. The bridge foundations comprised cast iron cylinders 9ft-10ft in diameter below low water and 7-8ft above sunk in 4ft lengths, weighted down by 150 tons of ballast to rock in some cases 70ft below high water. Compressed air working was necessary using air locks similar to those employed on Bouchs Tay Bridge, with pressures between 5 and 40lb/in2. There were four such cylinders supporting the three piers of the widest spans and two for the others, with cast iron bracing between the cylinders. The cylinders were filled with lime concrete and a layer of felt inserted between the cast iron and concrete, to help reduce the likelihood of cracking due to stresses arising from differential thermal expansion between the cast iron shell and the concrete base. In fact after 80 years of the bridge most of the cylinders showed signs of cracking due to frost action (Berridge, (1969). The Girder Bridge, p.151). The bridge was regularly was struck by barges and other vessels, and one such collision by two barges on 25 October 1960, with a combined weight of 858 tons, destroyed pier 17 and brought down the adjacent spans, making the bridge uneconomic to repair. Bridges of this type were clearly very vulnerable to lateral loads.

Sources

J B Redman (1845) Account of the new cast iron pier, at Milton-on-Thames, near Gravesend. Min Procs ICE, 4, 222-250; Terrace new pier; Gravesend, Illustrated London News, 6, 5 April 1845, 1-2; A short history of the acquisition and restoration of the Royal Terrace Pier by Pilots in the year 1893 c.1895; D Swinfer (1994) The Fall of the Tay Bridge, Edinburgh: Mercat Press; Anon (1845) Lighthouse on the Goodwin Sands, Mechs mag., 43, 9 August 1996; Anon (1847) Pneumatic pile driving, Civ engr. arch jnl., 10 December, 385; Anon (1849) Failure of a cast iron girder bridge, Mechs mag., 51, 166; Anon (1850) Shannon iron bridge, Civ engr, arch jnl, 13 December, 392; G R Burnell (1850) Supplement to the theory, practice, and architecture of bridges. Weale: London, 1850, 98-107; A G Findlay (1847) On

lighthouses and beacons, Trans Society of Arts, 56, 269-71; C Fox (1850) Minutes of evidence, 9 July, Select Committee on the Westminster Temporary Bridge Bill. HMSO: London, 23-24; H. Hayter(1863)The Charing Cross Bridge, Min Procs ICE, 512-517;W Humber (1863) Record of modern engineering, 42-44; W Humber (1870) A complete treatise on cast and wrought iron bridge construction, 3rd ed. Crosby Lockwood (?): London, 180-181, 247; J Newman (1893) Notes on cylinder bridge piers. Spon: London; L H Potts (1844) Minutes of Evidence, 10 June. Commission upon the subject of harbour of refuge. HMSO: London, 119-122; L H Potts (1847) On a pneumatic process for forming foundations for piers, breakwaters and similar structures, Trans Society of Arts, 156, 441-443; R D Prosser (1896) and M M Chrimes (1997) Laurence Holker Potts (new) Dictionary of national biography

F10

Compressed air foundations

The first man to suggest the use of compressed air for shafts and tunnels under construction in permeable strata was Sir Thomas Cochrane (patent 6018, 1830) (Glossop, 1976). The first practical application was by Jacques Triger, a French mining engineer who sank a shaft using his own patented method in 1839. Over the next decade the further mineshafts were sunk in Belgium and France, but it was not until Potts pneumatic method for sinking cylindrical foundations was exposed as unsatisfactory that Sir William Cubitt, consultant for the Rochester bridge, discussed with the contractors, Fox Henderson, another means of proceeding (Hughes, 1851). Cubitts resident engineer, John Wright, suggested using compressed air, although apparently unaware of Triger or Cochranes work. Wrights proposal lacked an air lock, but fortunately Fox Hendersons site agent, John dUrban Hughes, read about Trigers work in Ures Dictionary (Ure, 1846), and read Trigers paper (Triger, 1841). This led to a redesign, which included many of the features of Cochranes original patent as regards the air lock. The work proved a great success and Hughes was subsequently called in by Brunel to advise on the Chepstow Bridge cylinders, and Fox used the technique at Athlone [Chepstow, Forth].

Arguably the finest early application of compressed air for bridge foundations was for the central pier of I K Brunels Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash (Brereton (1861-1862);

Shirley-Smith (1976)). Following his experience at Chepstow Brunel planned to use a compressed air caisson from the first. Detailed site investigations were carried out at mid-river using a wrought iron cylinder 85ft long and 6ft in diameter, which was sunk through the river bed to the rock and, for a trial, masonry built up to the river bed level. Brunel then designed a caisson comprising a 35ft diameter wrought iron cylinder with an inclined cutting edge 6ft deeper to the south west to suit the profile of the rock surface below. About 20ft above the cutting edge there was a dome of wrought iron to form the roof of the working chamber above which a 10ft diameter shaft, open at top and bottom, provided access to the surface. Within the working chamber, at the suggestion of R P Brereton the resident engineer, an annular space 4ft in diameter was built around the circumference, the intention being to pump air into this space only, to expel the water and enable the workmen to enter it and built a cofferdam, avoiding the need to pressurise the whole chamber. A 6ft diameter

cylinder within the 10ft shaft was connected to the annular ring, which was divided into 11 compartments.

The caisson was built on the river bank and floated out before being moored and sunk to the river bed using water pressure and iron ballast. The equipment used was that previously employed at Chepstow. Once in position the workmen were able to work outside the ring to level the rock surface. The cutting edge of the caisson was 82ft below high water, necessitating an air pressure of 35psi; although this could be reduced by pumping water out of the river cylinder, the original 7 hour shifts were too long and many of the workmen suffered bends. alleviated by limiting shifts to 3 hours. These effects were eventually

There were considerable problems in dealing with rock fissures, but eventually the cylinder was sunk to a depth of 87ft 6in below high water and a granite ring 4ft thick and 7ft high built in the air jacket. After the caisson had been weighted down with pig iron and kentledge in case compressed air was required in the whole chamber, water was successfully pumped out of the working chambers, and excavation of the remaining mud and rock completed in the open. The inner plates of the chambers were cut out and masonry built up and successive layers of ironwork removed until the 35ft (solid) masonry pier had reached its full height of 96ft above foundation

level. Once capped four 10ft diameter octagonal columns of cast iron 2in thick, 10ft in height were erected in 6ft lengths with internal flanges and internal stiffening, to rail level, with cross bracing. The whole was completed with a cast iron portal 50ft in height. The combined dead and live load at the base of the pier was estimated at 10 tons/ft2. Work began on the pier in the spring of 1853, and was not completed until autumn 1856.

The Forth Railway bridge caissons represent caisson design brought to maturity. Joseph Phillips, a member of the contracting consortium had also been an employee of Fox Henderson when the first experiments were constructed with pneumatic foundations in the 1850s. The foundations for the main bridge towers are located at Queensferry, Inchgarvie and Fife, moving south to north. (3 timber cofferdam at Queensferry?) Each tower was supported by four foundation piers, which were of ?granite faced concrete, built up within wrought iron caissons 70ft in diameter at the cutting edge. At Queensferry where boulder clay was present, they were sunk under compressed air, at Fife the caissons were open as the rock was sufficiently accessible, as it was for the two northern piers at Inchgarvie; the southern piers at Inchgarvie were founded under compressed air. The caissons [fig. __] had an internal wall 7ft in from the outer wall, with bracing between, and this space was utilised to weigh down the caisson with stone, etc., for sinking. Specially designed air locks were developed by Arrol and Baker. Two shafts within the caisson provided access for material and air for workers.

Caisson work was carried out by Coiseau, specialist subcontractors (Coiseau had been a site agent for Hersent et Cie), with foreign labour. Below low water the caissons were filled with concrete, and above the caissons the masonry piers were built up, 55ft in diameter at their base, 49ft at the top, and 36ft in height. On top of each pier 48 24ft long 2.5in diameter steel bolts were cast (into the concrete?) to secure the base plates for the superstructure. Generally the caisson work proceeded smoothly, with the exception of the north west Queensferry pier where the effect of spring tide resulted in the caisson sinking unevenly in the mud and sliding out of position. External water pressure during pumping out caused some of the plates to buckle, and in all work was delayed by ten months on this pier. Some of the earliest examples of

the use of flash photography in civil engineering provide an atmospheric glimpse of work in these caissons [fig.___].

More or less contemporaneously with the Forth cast iron was used for the caisson for the Victoria Bridge at Stockton - and during sinking a fracture appeared which had to be lined with wrought iron plates and sealed with cement grout (Minutes of Proceedings, 109). This appears to have been the last occasion when cast iron was used, and subsequent caissons for compressed air work were all of mild steel (Conway, 1898; Redheugh ,1901; Barmouth, 1902; King Edward VII, Newcastle, 1904, ( G W M Boycott (1909)) .

The greatest exponents of this system of foundation contracts were Hersent et Cie who made use of compressed air on several important international jobs (Hersent, 1889) including tunnelling. The development of this aspect of tunnelling - soft ground subaqueous tunnelling under compressed air brought together three technological strands - the tunnelling shield, compressed air working, and also cast iron segmental tunnel lining (R Glossop (1976)).

Sources

G W M Boycott (1909) Compressed air work and diving.

Crosby Lockwood,

London; R P Brereton (1861) Description of the centre pier of the Saltash Bridge on the Cornwall Railway, and the means employed for its construction, Min Proc Instn Civ Engrs, 21, 268-276; W C Copperthwaite (1906) Tunnel shields and the use of compressed air in subaqueous works. London: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd.; W Daniel (1874) On compressed air machinery for underground haulage, Min Proc Instn Civ Engrs; Gaudard (1867-1877) On foundations, Min Proc Instn Civ Engrs, 50, 112147; R Glossop (1976) The invention and early use of compressed air to exclude water from shafts and tunnels Geotechnqiue, 26, 253-280); J H Greathead, (1896) The City and South London Railway; with some remarks upon subaqueous tunnelling by shield and compressed air, Proc Instn Civ Engrs, 123, 39-73; H Hersent (1889) Travaux publics. Ouvrages executes au moyen de lair comprime. Dragage,

derochements, terrassements, outillage.

Description des moyens dexecution,

machines, engines et installations diverses.

Paris: H J & G Hersent (1899).

Entreprises de travaux publics et maritimes, fondations a lair comprime, dragages, derochments, bassins de radoub, etc. Paris: Imprimerie Chaix; J Hersent and G Hersent (1906) Note sur lemploi de lair comprime pour lexecution des ouvrages hydrauliques et specialement des fondations. Experiences faites a Bordeaux pour demontrer quil est possible de travailler a de plus grandes profondeurs que celles usitees. Paris: Dunod; J Hughes (1851) On the pneumatic method adopted in

constructing the foundations of the new bridge across the Medway at Rochester. Min Proc Instn Civ Engrs. 10, 356; W J MAlpine (1868) The supporting power of piles; and on the pneumatic process for sinking iron columns, as practised in America, Min Proc Instn Civ Engrs, 27, 275-293; H Shirley Smith (1976) Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash, in A Pugsley ed. The Works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 163-170; Triger (1841). Memoire sur un appareil a air comprime pour le percement des puits de mines et autres travaux sous les eaux et dans les sables submerges. C R Acad Sci, 30, July, December

F7

Screw pile foundations

Cast iron screw pile foundations supporting cast iron columns are the archetypal nineteenth century marine substructure. The use of screw piles appears to have developed from the need to provide satisfactory anchorages for marine moorings. Early attempts to anchor foundations involved the excavation of the sea or river bed and placing an anchorage plate before covering it with sand, etc., Although

consolidation took place it was not an ideal solution. In 1833 Alexander Mitchell patented his screw pile foundation.

In its pioneering phase of development the patentee, Alexander Mitchell, and his son, were able to demonstrate that screws could be driven into most kinds of sea bed except solid rock, determining the required diameter of the screw by site investigation. Diameters of up to 4ft were used, but the practical upper limits were set by manufacturing facility and installation problems.

The system proved immediately popular for securing moorings which had hitherto been liable to drift due to problems in satisfactorily anchoring them to the sea or river bed (Mitchell, 1848). The early screw anchorages were driven from a variety of vessels available to port authorities, but W A Brooks, engineer on the Tyne, designed a purpose built barge. Generally the screw was attached to a wrought iron shaft and was driven to refusal or a sufficient depth by men using a capstan.

Of greater import was the potential of the screw system to provide an adequate foundation for permanent offshore structures such as lighthouse beacons. Many

attempts to mark shoals, sand banks and similar obstacles to navigation had proved unsatisfactory, particularly in exposed locations. The screw pile offered a possibility of a more secure foundation.

Following conclusions of his early experiments with both moorings and installations of screw piles, at the end of 1834 Mitchell was asked to install a fixed light on the Dumbbell, a mud bank at the entrance to the Bristol Avon. Although plans were drawn up they were overtaken by Trinity Houses decision to place a stone lighthouse in the area.

Over the next four years Mitchell actively publicised his invention, and by 1838 had persuaded James Walker the idea should be tried out by Trinity House for the foundations of a lighthouse at Maplin Sands. Initially a jointed boring rod 30ft long and 1 in diameter with a 6in diameter special flange at its base was screwed into the sands, and once it had reached a depth of 27ft a timber platform was erected upon it to support twelve men. The estimated load upon the flange, including equipment was one ton, and as no settlement took place it was assumed a 4ft diameter screw could support at least 6 tons, an experiment Mitchell himself realised was nothing more than an approximation to the truth. The total weight of the intended superstructure was 72 tons. Following this success a timber raft was built to act as a working platform for forty men and work began on the lighthouse foundations which comprised nine wrought iron piles of 5in diameter, 26ft in length, with 4ft diameter cast iron screws at their base, one at each corner of an octagonal plan and one at its centre, giving a height of 4ft above the bank when driven. Once the piles were

installed they were left for two years to observe settlement, etc. In the meantime a lighthouse on screw piles was erected in Morecambe Bay in the approaches to Fleetwood, by the Mitchells 1839-1840, and was lit on 6 June 1840. [fig. ____]

Here the wrought iron piles were 16ft long and the screws 3ft in diameter, sunk to a hexagonal plan with a central pile. The superstructure was of timber. A further lighthouse followed on a similar pattern at Hollywood Bank, Carrickfergus Bay. At Kish Bank the installation was unsuccessful as a storm destroyed the foundations before any bracing could be added and here and on Arklow and Blackwater Banks beacons were installed founded on cast iron screws and wrought iron piles.

With the systems practicality demonstrated the first application to a jetty took place at Courtown in 1847 - 260ft in length, 18ft 6in wide, with a 54ft long 30ft wide head founded on 2ft diameter screws with 5in diameter wrought iron piles.

With the system established firms like Ransomes and May developed a variety of screw piles which could be used as pile shoes for timber piles or columns on land.

Iron lighthouses

The development of the screw pile in the 1830s followed more than fifty years of applications of iron in the marine environment where its strength and durability made it an attractive alternative to timber. Several eighteenth century lighthouses made use of iron in the lantern house - for example Smeatons Edystone lighthouse had cast iron corner columns and a wrought iron frame for its lantern. In 1745 iron legs were proposed by Henry Whiteside for Smalls Lighthouse, but these were replaced by timber as the iron legs proved faulty. In 1795 Henry Smith erected a wrought iron mast (Douglas, 1870) 20ft high, 4in diameter, braced with stays, at Wolf Rock; it was almost immediately swept away. This was followed by unsuccessful iron beacons at Bell Rock (1799-1800), and a further early design for Bell Rock by Robert Stevenson of a lighthouse supported on cast iron columns. More successful was Carr Rock Beacon (1812-1818) which had a stone base on which 6 cast iron pillars supported an iron beacon. Apparently in ignorance of these developments Samuel Brown designed

a lighthouse supported on 5 cast iron columns 80ft long for the Smalls with trussed bracing. From the 1820s cast iron lighthouses were built, beginning with that on Broomelaw Quay, Glasgow (1824), and Gravesend Town Pier (1834). One of the earliest such surviving is at Maryport (1846). [fig. ____] The ready prefabrication of such structures led to their export to the colonies, and from the 1840s more than 100 were erected, firms such as Grissell, Cottam specialising in their fabrication. Such structures required a reasonable foundation, and under their consulting engineer James Walker Trinity House experimented with a variety of beacons and lights supported on iron columns for offshore locations.

Sources

G Herbert (1978) Pioneers of prefabrications, Baltimore, John Hopkins, 31-33, 151, 172-173; D A Stevenson (1959) The worlds lighthouses before 1820, OUP, London

F7.1

Jetted pile foundations

For his viaduct over the Leven in 1853 James Brunlees proposed a series of St Andrews cross type trussed spans supported on Mitchell type screw pile foundations and cast iron columns. Concern over the bearing capacity of the sand/silt site led to the development of an alternative method, making use of large plates to increase the bearing surface, and sinking the piles using jetting techniques developed with a contractor, Harry Brogden. There was a hole in the centre of each disk, 2in diameter, connected by a flexible hose, to a donkey engine and pump. These forced water through the pipe into the sand, which was consequently loosened and the piles sunk rapidly a depth of 7ft to 9ft of sand, and move slowly through mud below. The technique having proved successful, it was employed in appropriate situations with specialist heads for breaking up the ground. [fig. ____].

Sources

J Brunlees (1858) Description of the iron viaducts erected across the tidal estuaries of the rivers Leven and Kent, in Morecambe Bay, for the Ulverstone and Lancaster Railway, Min Procs ICE, 17, 442-448

F8

Seaside piers

[suggested illustrations: Margate pier (Builder); Jetting at Southport; Southport (1861); Westward Ho!; Skegness; Clevedon; Clacton; Brighton West; Brighton Palace; Blackpool Central; Dixons piles; Dowsons columns]

The development of seaside resorts in the second half of the nineteenth century was associated with the construction of seaside piers, offering visitors the possibility of promenading, an increasing range of attractions in the associated buildings, and a landing place for pleasure steamers and ferries. The archetypal structure associated with this comprises screw pile foundations, cast iron columns with wrought iron ties, and wrought iron longitudinal lattice girders supporting cross beams and a timber deck. An examination of contemporary descriptions reveals this to be a gross

oversimplification of what was built, and table C summarises details of surviving piers. An early alternative design of which no examples survive was an application of suspension bridge technology, at Newhaven (ferry) pier in Scotland, and, more famously, Brighton Chain Pier, and, latterly, Seaview. It should also be remembered that a number of ferry piers built on major estuaries such as the Mersey, Thames, and Humber, shared many of the civil engineering features of the seaside piers, and the floating landing stages to be found, for example, on the Mersey, are of interest in themselves. In contrast the coal staithes, so typical of the north-east coalfield, survive only in timber at Blyth and Dunstan.

The earliest use of iron in a pier substructure was almost certainly in Tierney Clarks Town Pier at Gravesend (1833-1834), while Redmans pier nearby is the earliest use of cylinder foundations (section).

The earliest seaside piers, commencing with Ryde (1813-1814) were intended as piers for coastal steamers. They were built with traditional timber foundations, with their

open form combining the supposed advantages of offering little resistance to wave action and coastal drift with economy of construction. These early structures soon needed attention, largely because of the ravages of teredo navalis, most classically at Southend (Paton, 1850?) Following the pioneering work of Mitchell and Potts in the 1830s and 1840s, the possibility of using iron for subaqueous foundations was established, and, as the first generation of piers was renewed, iron was increasingly adopted.

Herne Bay, originally built in untreated timber to designs of Thomas Telford in 1831, was showing signs of the ravages of teredo navalies by 1839 when the contractor James McIntosh was asked to report. Action was finally taken in 184(1) when J M Higgins removed the damaged piers replacing the outer piles in timber which was felt more capable of resisting the shock of vessels, etc., and the inner (driven) piles with cast iron, jointed to the sound timber with special pieces of iron (Higgins, 1845).

For Gravesend Town Pier Clark founded the supporting shoreward cast iron columns on masonry foundations, but at the river end each column was supported by three cast iron piles. These were accurately positioned by driving from a timber platform with circular holes in cast iron templates corresponding with the centre of each pile. Cast iron shells were passed through the holes and driven into the chalk. An auger was inserted, to bore a hole to receive the pile, which was then lowered into the shell and partially driven. Once secure the shell could be withdrawn and driving completed. Plates were fitted to each pile group and the iron column bolted in position.

Sources

D Smith, TNS 63, 1991-1992, 193-195, Works of W T Clark

The coming of the railways increased the popularity of seaside trips, and the rivalry between resorts encouraged the developments of additional facilities for visitors. Southport (1859-1860) paved the way in this respect as the first pier designed for seaside entertainment rather than for landing.

The 1860s and 1870s were the golden age of pier construction. Of a total 88 piers built, 40 were erected in those decades, although they continued to be built down to the First World War, and existing piers were enlarged. There was a down side to this success story, with fires and storms taking their toll from an early date. Westward Ho, for example, was severely damaged before completion and demolished within 5 years of its commencement. Physical damage and improvements must have to made it difficult to assess the possible long term effects of corrosion. By the 1890s, after a period of experimentation in the 1860s and 1870s, it would appear that hollow cast iron columns, with some sort of anti-corrosion preservative measures applied to the interior were being preferred to solid wrought iron piles because of durability concerns (Newman, 1896). At that time there was increasing use of steel in the superstructure. Timber was used throughout, not just for the decks, but also for landing stages and other situations where lateral shocks from boats were likely; at Westwood Ho! trussed longitudinal timber girders were used.

The typical seaside pier is associated with the name of Eugenius Birch. Eugenius (1818-1884) and his brother John Brannis (1813-1862) were the sons of a London architect and surveyor, and took an interest in engineering in its broadest sense from an early age; their early work would now be considered mechanical engineering, and included theatrical machinery. In the 1840s, when they set up in practice at Cannon Row, Westminster, they inevitably became involved in railway work in the mania years, and their first pier design dates from this period - an 1847 proposal for a 800ft landing pier at Dover (CEAJ 10, 1847, 263). This was not built, presumably because the capital could not be raised due to the financial crisis, but in the early 1850s another design, at Margate, was realised.

Erected 1853-1856, Margate was the first seaside pier to make use of screw pile foundations. Although the Birch design was successful, both Redman and Mitchell had tendered. It replaced an earlier (1831) timber structure, which had cast iron pile foundations (Webb, 1862). Work on the pier began on 3 May 1853 with S Bastow of Hartlepool acting as contractors, The landward section was curved in plan, narrowing from 84ft at the entrance to 20ft at 180ft from the shore. The entrance was supported on 23 cast iron piles 12in(?) in diameter, driven 10ft into the chalk, supporting

wrought iron girders beneath a timber deck. The main pier continued 20ft wide for 950ft supported on 14 clusters of five piles, 16in in diameter, with one in the centre of the cluster, braced by wrought iron ties horizontally and vertically, at 72ft centres, driven 10ft into the chalk. The piles were made up of 3 lengths, making an average overall length of 40ft. The pier head was a parallelogram 110ft long and 45ft broad, supported on 57 screw piles with shafts of wrought iron 5in in diameter, 20ft long, with a 30in diameter screw, each pile being screwed 10ft into the chalk. The pier was greatly extended 1875-1878. Screw piles were next employed for the extension of the original Ryde Pier in 1859.

Although some piers were built on columnar iron piles by British engineers overseas in the 1850s, it is not really until 1860 that the idea began to take hold, with Southport (1859-1860) and Blackpool (1862-1863) paving the way. The original Southport Pier was 1,200 yards long and supported on lines of 3 cast iron columns cast in three lengths. The lowest length, 8-10ft long, was sunk 7-9ft into the sand. Of 7in external diameter and 5in internal diameter it had a 1ft 6in diameter circular disk at the end, with a hole in the centre to facilitate sinking and a wrought iron pipe could be passed through for water jetting (section ____). The bottom length had a socket joint sealed with iron cement to receive the next length, remaining joints were bolted flanges. The outer piles were sunk with a slight rake. 6-7 piles could be sunk every 24 hours, and they were load tested with 12 tons, (7 tons/ft2). There were double row of columns at 3 places to provide continuity(?). The superstructure was supported on 3 rows of lattice girders, 3ft deep spanning 48ft 10in, at 50ft centres.

Although the original construction at Southport used Brunlees jetted piles subsequent work made use of Dixons cast iron driven piles [fig. ___]. Dixon presumably adopted this form for added strength in driving, and used a wooden dolly to minimise the risk of fracture. Dixon was not the only name aside from Birch and Brunlees to become associated with this form of construction. Some contractors such as Wilson, Laidlaw, Dowson, Head Wrightson and the Wigan foundry developed specialist expertise. Dowson developed a form of Phoenix column of wrought iron, the first with internal flanges (patent 20, 1863) and the second with the more familiar external flanges (1937, 1863) [figs.] At Blackpool Central (1867-1868) curved wrought iron

boiler plates were fabricated into columns of 2 halves fixed together, joined to cast iron screw pile foundations. The ill-fated Westwood Ho! columns were built up from wrought iron channels and plates. The use of such columns for the support of the piers is only one example of the variety of forms of construction employed.

F8.1

Recent pier work

Bangor Garth Pier (Barker, 1984) A relatively late pier, built in 1896 by Alfred Thorne to designs of J J Webster, its original length was 1500ft, and width 24ft. Founded on cast iron screwed piles and with cast iron columns its superstructure of lattice girder and transverse beams was of steel, with a timber deck. By 1971 it was in such poor condition it had to be closed. Restoration work began in 1982, using rectangular hollow sections for the trusses for the girder work.

Brighton West Pier (Mills, 1991) The best known of the surviving piers, originally built 1861-1863, and extended 1875, 1891, and 1914-1916, it was closed 1975. Birchs original construction had cast iron screw piles connected to 4-5in diameter wrought iron bars. These were within 10-15 years being reduced to 2in diameter by corrosion and having to be replaced. A Posford Duvivier survey revealed in 1984 40% of the timber deck was missing or unusable, 60% of the steel and timber deck jetty, 34% of the longitudinal girders 4% of the columns, 4% of the piles and 75% of the ties. An inspection by Ralph Mills in 1991 revealed large sections of the pier suffering from advanced corrosion.

Clevedon Pier (Fenton, 1991) Clevedon was designed by J W Grover and R Ward and built 1867-1868 by Windsor Ironworks, Liverpool. It is approximately 24in long and 6.00m wide and is a graceful structure made up of 8 100ft spans supported on columns built up of wrought iron Barlow-rail sections raked at 1 in 10 and braced with 45mm, and 64mm diameter, wrought iron tie rods and horizontal girders comprising wrought iron angles and cast iron struts.

The Barlow rails are curved to form longitudinal and transverse arches, with 1070mm deep wrought iron longitudinal girders with 450mm deep, 14mm thick flange plates. The 127mm cast iron screw of the foundation were secured into the sea bed until its resistance snapped a 114mm diameter rope, at a depth of 2-5.00m. The pile itself was of wrought iron and the columns were connected to the screws by cast iron shoes.

The spans 7 and 8 pier collapsed famously during a load test using water in polythene tubes in 1970 and for many years Clevedon faced demolition as supporters sought to raise funds for its preservation. A detailed physical and condition survey was carried out, revealing a dramatic variation in the extent of corrosion through the structure, with the shoreward spans worst affected. A modern computer analysis for the

continuous plate girder and supporting arches revealed a close correlation with Ward and Grovers calculations. Tests on the wrought iron revealed a yield strength of 250N/mm2, and a permissible stress of 80N/mm2 was developed for bending and direct stresses. The results of calculations assuming a full section were compared with the physical survey to establish the extent of repair necessary which revealed that despite the considerable loss of material only a small proportion of the plate girder needed to be replaced for structural reasons.

Some repairs were effected by butt welding replacement steel which could seal existing laminations. Where loss of material was so great as to raise concerns about the theoretical tensile stresses the whole section was replaced because of concerns over cracking of the wrought iron in the heat affected zone. The original intention was to repair in-situ, but the (original) successful contractors specified tender involved dismantling the structure and repairing it on dry land. Sufficient Barlow rail material was acquired from British Rail to avoid the need for facsimile reconstruction. Steel pile and concrete dolphin support were provided for the

wrought iron piles which had been exposed since original installation by scour to a depth of 1.5m.

Southend Pier (Douglas, 1991) Southend Pier is of interest in part because of its size, and in part because its history of successive repairs and extension has meant a variety of forms of construction are

found. The presence of the pier railway has meant it has to bear greater service loadings than most other piers. The main pier stem, 6,000ft in length is supported at 30ft centres by transverse lines of 4 cast iron columns at 9ft centres, with wrought iron ties. Three lines of columns were founded on cast iron screwed piles, and the 4th on driven cast iron piles. The columns support 4 longitudinal girders of steel or wrought iron and transverse steel joists. A similar mix of materials is found

elsewhere with the exception of the Prince George extension which is of reinforced concrete. An inspection carried out in 1971 revealed that the cast iron columns were generally sound, although no detailed inspection of the piles was possible. In contrast the wrought iron ties were in poor condition. The material of the longitudinal girders reflected the history of past repairs and enlargements with the two lines on the west generally of the original (1890) wrought iron and those on the east of (1930-1935) steel. The initial inspection revealed that the wrought iron was generally in better condition than the steel, although there was much corrosion on the underside of the girders and where there were beam-column and beam-beam connections. It was decided to test two of the longitudinal girders, which was done with point loads at third points. Test results revealed the girders carried approximately 4 times the maximum working load before collapse. In contrast the transverse beams, which had to carry the rail track loadings, required extensive replacement. All the surviving original wrought iron joists had been replaced in 1935, and successive repairs to the rail had involved further replacement of steel joists. Of 4,000 transverse beams supplying the rail track 745 were condemned and duplicated as an emergency measure and 108 identified as requiring attention.

F11

Durability of iron structures in underground and underground and marine environments

The issue of corrosion of cast and wrought iron and steel is dealt with elsewhere (see section). The durability of iron was, however, a factor in its original selection for foundations and piers and some notice of historical views on the subject is perhaps appropriate here. Design inadequacies of many of the largely offshore beacons and piers probably meant that longer term corrosion was not a factor in their demise. Early engineers views about the durability of cast and wrought iron were ambiguous.

While the inadequacies of timber were obvious, the potential for iron to corrode was of some concern, although early reports are based on anecdotal observations, such as cutting immersed cannon balls with knives, rather than a systematic scientific examination. The most important early tests were those carried out by Robert Mallet (Mallet, 1838-1843) On the corrosion of cast and wrought iron in water, using samples of cast and wrought iron, some treated with paint or galvanised in saline and in saline water, clear and foul, and various temperatures. Following Mallets research further discussions took place at the Institution of Civil Engineers and elsewhere recording engineers views and research. There was general agreement that when an adequate protective coating could be achieved with regular maintenance durability was not an immediate problem.

The views of leading engineers, many of whom referred to Mallets work were expressed in their evidence to the Select Committee on Westminster Bridge (1856). Pages use of cast iron plates for the bridge foundations was criticised by Robert Stephenson among others as it was only a temporary structure with a design life of c.50 years, only suitable for wharves and other cheaper engineering works. Other engineers such as Fowler and Hawkshaw supported Page as the main foundation was the concrete placed within the cast iron plates upon bearing piles, and would have had plenty of time to gather strength before the cast iron had deteriorated.

Although evidence of extreme instances of corrosion was reported on occasion, such as the poor condition of the bolts holding the ties of the original Tay Bridge (St John Day, 1880), and the fatal collapse of the landing stage at Morecambe Pier in 1895 (Addison, 1896), Newman, in 1896 observed that The duration of the parts of a structure which are either constantly submerged or buried in the earth, can only be deductively estimated from the behaviour of similar works subject to like conditions and circumstances. He suggested installing piles, etc., independently of, but adjacent to the main structure which could be removed for inspection periodically, without damaging the structural integrity, to give an indication of rates of corrosion. He also recommended It would be a valuable guide, when old girders are removed, if even a few bare details were supplied, stating the dimensions of the original members of a structure, and they were compared with the thickness of the bridge when taken down;

the nature of the traffic; abstract of specification, date of erection; how often painted; and with what substance, etc., etc. Then, in time, some valuable data could be tabulated showing the most vulnerable parts of an ordinary metallic structure At present, information is very fragmentary and difficult to obtain (J Newman (1896). By this time there was a better understanding of the general process of corrosion and the influence of factors such as proximity of metals with differing electro-chemical properties, following investigations by Thomas Andrews and others. No practical guidance, however, existed.

No doubt reflecting an awareness of the imperfect knowledge of the time, in 1916 the Institution of Civil Engineers applied to the government for research funding to study the Deterioration of structures of timber, metal and concrete exposed to the action of sea water. Over the next fifty years a series of reports were produced on their own long term observations of iron and steel, and experience elsewhere. Their first, 1920, report contains information on the performance of a number of nineteenth century structures in the UK and overseas. These ICE initiated studies were more or less contemporaneous with similar studies carried out under the auspices of the United States National Bureau of Standards into long term durability of metal pipes underground. Results were published after the war by Romanoff. A summary of subsequent research into the performance of mild steel has been provided by Melchers (1997), which suggests a shortage of long term studies. BCIRA research into the marine corrosion of cast iron initiated in 1966 suggests a superior performance to steel even when uncoated (Rooker, 1984)

Sources

T Andrews (1884) On galvanic action between wrought iron, cast metals and various steels during long exposure in sea water, Min Procs., ICE, 77, 323-336 (1885) Corrosion of metals during long exposure to sea water, Min Procs ICE, 82, 281-300; (1894) The effect of stress on the corrosion of metals, Min Procs ICE, 118, 356-374; Institution of Civil Engineers (1920-1967) Reports of the Sea Action Committee, 122; R Mallet (1838-1840) Report(s) upon experiments upon the action of sea and river water upon cast and wrought iron, Brit Assn Rep., 1838, 253-312, 1840, 221-308;

J Newman (1896) Metallic structures: corrosion and fouling, and their prevention; R Mallet (1840) On the corrosion of cast and wrought iron in water, Min Procs ICE, 1, 70-75; R Mallet (1843) On the action of air and water upon cast and wrought iron, and steel, Min Procs, ICE, 2, 171-181; M Romanoff (1957) Underground corrosion, US NBS Circular, 579; M Romanoff (1962) Corrosion of steel pilings in soils, US NBS, Journal of research, 66c, 3, 223; US NBS monograph 58; M Romanoff (1964) Exterior corrosion of cast iron pipes, Am Water Works Assn Jnl., 56, 9, 1129-1143; M Romanoff (1967) Results of NBS corrosion investigations in disturbed and undisturbed soils, West Virginia University Engg. Expt. Station, Tech. Bull., 86, 437460; W Rooker (1984) Cast iron and the Coalbrookdale Company in Pier Symposium, DoE, 1-8; Select Committee on Westminster Bridge (1856) Minutes of Evidence

F12

Canals and other hydraulic structures

The application of iron to canals and hydraulic structures is generally associated with open channel canal aqueducts such as Longdon-on-Tern and Pontcysyllte (section ______), but was used more extensively and much earlier in enclosed channels, or pipelines. Indeed one of the earliest works on the strength of materials, Mariottes Traite du mouvement des eaux (1718), was in part inspired by the application of metal pipes to the Versailles water supply (Mariotte, (1718); Desaguliers).

The earliest use appears to have been in Germany for cast iron pipes at Dillenburg Castle water supply in 1455. (Buffet and award 1950). At Versailles over 40km of pipes were installed after 1672 (Belidor, 1739). Cast iron pipes were used

increasingly for Londons water supply from the early eighteenth century. The first applications were probably connections to steam engines, with firms like Coalbrookdale using cast iron for steam engines from c.1722. Chelsea waterworks installed their first cast iron main in 1746, by which time London Bridge waterworks had 1813 yards installed (Messinger?) Edinburgh also had cast iron mains by this time. By the 1770s Carron, Wilkinson, and Coalbrookdale were all tendering for water supply pipes. Wilkinson exported pipes to Paris, where the family were heavily involved in the water supply scheme, and New York.

In the early nineteenth century, after a brief flirtation with stone pipes, cast iron became the standard material (Stanton, 1936), and the production of cast iron pipes was further encouraged by growth of gas supply. By mid-century a whole range of joints and fittings were available. To meet concerns about bursting pipes were tested using specialist equipment such as the hydraulic equipment developed by Tangyes. Rankine recommended a bursting pressure of 5 times the working pressure. Specialist equipment was also made to gauge pipe thickness. Transfer of production technology was most obvious for structural columns, but flanged pipes could also be used for bridge structures (see ______).

Pipes were traditionally cast horizontally, which could lead to an unequal distribution of iron, of crucial importance for pipes subject to internal pressure. To alleviate this problem for the 1860s pipes were cast at an angle, or, following the patent of D Y Stewart of the Lindley foundry, Montrose, vertically. In 1914 the Brazilian engineer Sensand de Lavalld began experimenting with centrifugal casting, and his method became general after the First World War. (Humber, 1878; Stanton, 1936; Early Victorian water engineers, London, Telford).

Sources

B F Belidor (1739) Architecture hydraulique, 2, 350; G M Binnie (1981) Early Victorian water engineers, London, Telford; B Buffet and R Evrard (1950) LEau potable a travers les ages, 154-155; C Cavallier (1904) The life of cast iron pipe, New England Waterworks Association Journal, 18; W Humber (1878) A comprehensive treatise on the water supply of cities and towns, London, Crosby Lockwood; Stanton Ironwork Company (1936) Cast iron pipe: its life and service

Iron pipeline aqueducts could be major structures in their own right and Simpsons Bristol wrought iron aqueduct is justifiably regarded as a major achievement of British water engineers. In three sections, forming part of an eleven mile aqueduct from east of the Mendips to the Barrow reservoirs, the wrought iron aqueduct comprised an oval riveted structure, approximately 7ft x 3ft 6in maximum diameter, supported at 50ft centres, and rising to 60ft in high supported on cast iron saddles

with balls to permit thermal movement, resting on masonry piers. The aqueduct varied between 350 and 825ft in length (Binnie, 1981).

While pipes and other hydraulic structures such as flap gates might be regarded as items of street furniture, used through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some waterway structures are more unusual.

Telford may justly be regarded as a pioneer of the application of iron to canal structures. In addition to his involvement in aqueducts, his canals featured cast iron locks and lock gates. On the Ellesmere Canal concern about the durability of timber lock gates, and the ready availability of cast iron led into its application on the Ellesmere Port, Nantwich section, for the heads, heels and ribs sheeted with timber planking. On the larger locks of 14ft width these were cast separately with flanges for fastening, but the narrower 7 ft lock gates were cast as single leafs. (Telford (1838) Life, 36-37). On the Caledonian Canal the shortage of suitable oak, doubtless

exacerbated by the demands of the navy in the Napoleonic Wars, led to the use of cast iron for the heads, heels and bars of the locks. This application does not appear to have been a durable success (Kingsbury ____), but Telford was undoubtedly impressed by the use of iron gates in the Ellesmere, as they were also adopted on the Gotha Canal. The first model gates were designed by James Thompson and

imported from Hazledines works, due to problems in setting up a convenient foundry in Sweden, but subsequent gates were made in Sweden [fig. ].

In some ways Telfords confidence in cast iron is best demonstrated by his decision to use it to deal with the problems of quicksand which had destroyed the locks at Beeston, a development which anticipated the use of iron for caisson structures (sections ____) (Telford, Life, p.37, plate 11).

Despite Telfords lead iron was not widely adopted for lock gates in the early nineteenth century, although the requirement for larger locks grew with the size of vessels. The only other example appears to be John Rennies cast iron dock gates at Sheerness (c.1821). Jesse Hartley preferred to use greenheart, which was resistant to the ravages of teredo navalis, even for 75ft span gates at Liverpool (Rawlinson,

18__). Some engineers realised, however, that the use of cast iron framing and wrought iron plates meant a floating gate could be built, reducing the weight on the supports. This was further developed at Londons Victoria Docks into all wrought iron gates [fig. ]; wrought iron floating caissons were also employed as convenient water excluding structures during construction (Kingsbury, 1859). Such caisson gates had been introduced, in timber, to Britain, by Samuel Bentham at Portsmouth (1798-1801) and they continued to be used in the first half of the nineteenth century. Generally they were floated and then towed into position, but when arrangements were being made for the steam navy at Keyham (Portsmouth) in the 1840s it was decided to use sliding caisson gates, and employ wrought iron, whose merits had been displayed in the Britannia Bridge research. [fig] (Fairbairn, 1854). By 1880 a whole range of caissons had been used (Macalister, 1881). Forces on lock gates were analysed by Barlow in an early ICE paper (Barlow ______). Numerous examples, and discussion of the merits of the various forms of lock gates is to be found in standard Victorian and early twentieth century textbooks such as Vernon Harcourt (1889), Cunningham (1904-1922), Colson (1894), Plat Taylor (1928-1949). Generally, whilst iron and steel were initially cheaper, Greenheart was found to be relatively maintenance free.

Iron gates for control structures were widely adopted from and some fabricators such as Ransome and Rapier specialised in such structures. Francis Gould Morony Storey (c.1836-1897), with a background in railway and shipbuilding, became interested in the problems of designing sluice gates for Indian irrigation works following working there in 1869. He patented his first invention, an equilibrium sluice in 1872, and followed this with a cylindrical sluice which was first used on the Weaver navigation in 1873 - 28 were ordered there - and later the same year the roller sluice for which he was best known. The first large examples were installed at Lough Erne in 1883, but it was their extensive use on the Manchester Ship Canal - 30 flood sluices and 80 lock sluices - which led to their widespread adoption on works such as those on the first Aswan Dam (Ashford, 1920; Bligh 1910; Price, 1890; Stokes, 1903; Williams, 1898). The gates supplied for the Sukkur barrage were recently restored. One of the 6.1m high steel caisson gates on the barrage failed after 50 years service in

December 1982.

Subsequent inspection of the other gates revealed corrosion

problems throughout, up to 30% in some members (Buttfield, 1990; Dane, 1988).

Sources

A Buttfield (1990) Repairing Pakistans Sukkur Barrage, Construction, maintenance and repair journal, 1990, 3-7; R Dane (1988) Sukkur barrage rehabilitation, Crown Agents Review, 1, 8-14; P W Barlow (1836) Strain to which lock gates are subjected, Trans ICE, 1; C Colson (1894) Notes on docks and dock construction; B Cunningham; F M Du-Plat Taylor (1928-1949) The design, construction and maintenance of docks, wharves and piers, 3 editions, Eyre and Spottiswood: London; Fairbairn; Hovey; Kemp; D Macalister (1881) Caissons for dock entrances, Min Procs., 65, 337-350; L F Vernon Harcourt (1889) Harbours and docks, 2 vols., Oxford, Clarendon; W J Kingsbury (1859) Description of the entrance, entrance lock, and jetty walls of the Victoria (London) Docks. Min Procs., ICE, 18, 445-476

Sources

J Ashford (1920) Sluice gates for irrigation works. Punjab Irrigation Department; W G Bligh (1910) The practical design of irrigation works. London: Constable; J Price (1890) Lough Erne drainage. Min Procs, ICE, 101, 73-127; F W S Stokes (1903) Sluices and lock gates of the Nile reservoir. Min Procs., ICE, 152, 108-123; E L Williams (1898) The Manchester Ship Canal, Min Procs., ICE, 131, 19, 45-46;

Domestically the Thames Barrier provides a recent example of this tradition.

W. Fairbairn(1854)Description of the sliding caisson at Keyham dockyard. Min Procs ICE, 444-463.

Iron framing, and occasionally iron plates were employed in the second half of the nineteenth century for moveable dams [fig ____] the origins of which can be traced back centuries to the flash locks and wickets used to temporarily raise water levels for navigation. Such a system was taken one stage further in the United States at the end

of the century when a fixed steel dam 184ft long was erected at Ash Fork, Arizonia in 1898. Further essays followed in the early twentieth century (Hovey, 1935).

Sources

O E Hovey (1935) Steel dams; E L Kemp (1999) The Great Kanawha navigation, University of Pittsburg Press; E Wegmann (1901) Design and construction of dams, 4th ed, etc., L F Vernon Harcourt (1880) Fixed and moveable weirs, Min Procs, ICE, 60, 24-42; B Cunningham (1904-1922) A Treatise on the principles and practice of dock engineering. London: Griffin

F13

Cast iron shafts

F5.1

Shaft linings

From the seventeenth century methods were developed in the North East coalfield to line mine shafts and thus exclude percolation from water bearing strata into the shaft. Such methods were particularly important in areas of quick sand and other loose water bearing strata. These methods, known as tubbing, were first carried out using timber planks for the lining, resting on a timber curb installed in impermeable strata. Solid wood tubbing was found capable of resisting pressure of 200-300psi.

The coal industry were early users of iron and as early as 1737 James Erskine ordered cast iron barrels and plates for use in his mines at Alloa. In 1792 John Buddle the elder made use of full shaft diameter cast iron cylinders at Wallsend A pit to deal with quicksand. In 1795 the first experiments by Thomas Barnes were made at King Pit, Walker Colliery with cast iron lining, comprising cylinders 6ft long and of the same diameter as the internal diameter of the shaft, with outward projecting flanges and sheeted between the joints between the cylinders which were placed one upon another. This method was found unsatisfactory due to problems with casting, and also obstruction of pumps and other equipment. Although large diameter castings with inward projecting flanges were subsequently employed sinking into soft strata by gravity, and excavating the interior, the method which was more generally adopted

involved building up the cylinders using segments. Initially this was expensive, but the method introduced by John Buddle at Percymain in 1795-1796 with 4ft x 2ft segments bolted on inward flanges and at Howdon Colliery near North Shields (18041805) with outward flanges, and no screws, became widespread. By the 1860s tables had been drawn up (Hedley,1865) indicating the (water) pressure, depth of shafts, shaft diameter and thickness and size of the cast iron tubbing plates required to depths of 600ft. Ang formula was used to ascertain the plate thickness using an additional thickness of 1/8in to allow for oxidation. A key aspect of their successful use was the installation of the (generally) cast iron curb which had to be wedged tightly into position prior to building the plates upon it. A typical shaft is shown as [fig.6].

Cast iron shafts were also used in the early nineteenth century in Cornwall for tin mining offshore at Porth, Carnon and Restronguet. The first attempt at Porth early in the century was flooded by the sea and a second shaft sunk in the early 1820s. The 6ft diameter cylinder was sunk by mooring a loaded barge above the shaft at high tide. At Restronguet an artificial island was created c.100ft in diameter, and a 12ft diameter riveted wrought iron shaft sunk through this to bedrock by loading it with silt.

[J Buddle (1838) On mining records, Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc., Northumberland, 2, 320321; M Dunn (1838) On the sinking of Preston Grange Engine Pit, Trans. NHSN, 2, 230; M Dunn (1852) A treatise on the mining and working of collieries, 2nd ed., Newcastle, Dunn; M W Flinn (1984) History of the British Coal industry, Clarendon, Oxford, vol.2, 76-77; R L Galloway (1882) A history of coal mining in Great Britain. London: Macmillan, 1882; G C Greenwell (1855) A practical treatise on mine engineering; E Hedley (1865) On the tubbing of shafts, South Wales Inst. Engineers, Transactions, 4, 104-119

F5.2

Well sinking was also carried out using similar methods (Spon, 1875). Page had refined methods of well-sinking using timber supports and a brick lining in the late eighteenth century (Page, 1784, 1797). A combination of brick on curbs and cast iron was used by the New River Company in Hampstead in 1835 (Mylne, 1842). [fig. ____].

In the nineteenth century a variety of specialist boring tools were developed, by firms such as Mather and Platt (Humber, 1876, Mather, 1864). Their tube linings were of cast iron, 5/8in - in in thickness, and in lengths of 9ft, joined with wrought iron hoops 9in long, and the same external diameter as the tubing, which reduced in diameter at each end to fit into the hoops [fig.7]. Diameter varied for the boreholes from 6in24in. A section through a well at Charringtons Brewery, Mile End is displayed as [fig.8]. The cast iron lining had a diameter varying from 9-10ft, and was 9in thick cast iron.

Sources

W Humber (1876) A comprehensive treatise on the water supply of cities and towns; S Hughes (1859) A treatise on waterworks, London, Weale; W Mather (1855); W Mather (1864) On the machinery used in boring artesian wells and its application to mining purposes, South Wales Inst Engineers, Trans., 4, 51-78, 123-132; R W Mylne and others (1842) On the supply of water from artesian wells in the London Basin, ICE Trans., 3, 229-244; T H Page (1797) An account of the commencement and progress in sinking wells, at Sheerness, Harwich and Landguard Fort (London, Stockdale) from Phil Trans., 74, 1784; J G Swindell and G R Burrell (1883) Rudimentary treatise on wells and well sinking, London, Crosby Lockwood

F5.3

Tube tunnels

For horizontal workings the traditional means of support was timber. In the 1820s Brunel employed cast iron for his Thames Tunnel shield, details of the second version being provided by Law (1846); the size of the face to be supported was probably unprecedented in soft ground. The costs of the scheme, and problems encountered, were sufficient to deter any immediate follow up, and soft ground tunnelling continued to be carried out using timber supports, and in water bearing strata pumping and perseverance were the order of the day; brick lining was the norm. By 1860 considerable experience had been obtained with cast iron cylinders, and also the employment of compressed air in excavations in subaqueous conditions. From

remarks by his nephew, Crawford Barlow (C Barlow (1896)), it would appear that it was from his experience with the sinking of cylinders for Lambeth Bridge that Peter William Barlow first thought of using a cylindrical iron shield and cast iron lining for tunnelling in his patent of 1864 (2207).

Barlow experienced problems with raising capital and securing a contractor for a scheme, and the first application, for the Tower Subway, was built by his former assistant James Henry Greathead, who was largely responsible for making modern shield tunnelling a practical reality. The Tower Subway, 1,350ft long and driven in clay throughout, was lined with cast iron rings with an internal diameter of 6ft 7in. Each ring was 18in wide and made up of 3 segments and a key piece. It was 7/8in thick with flanges 218in deep. The shield, cylindrical in form, was advanced by 6 screws, worked by men in the shield, thrusting against the lining, and was made up of wrought iron plates thick. It was wider at the front than behind to reduce skin friction. At the front was a cast iron ring with its round edge forward, to which were bolted wrought iron plates with an opening for men and materials. Progress averaged 9ft in 24 hours.

The engineering success of the Tower Subway was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to raise capital for a project under the Thames at Woolwich, and then the City and South London Railway, which obtained its Act in 1884, work not starting until 1886 due to financial problems (Greathead, 1896). The first sections to be built were the two tunnels beneath the Thames, largely to demonstrate the feasibility of the project, as most scepticism attached to this length. Work began near the Monument 70ft below the surface in October 1886 and the section below the river was 73ft below High Water. From London Bridge it continued beneath Borough High Street via the Elephant and Castle to Stockwell. Progress was slow at first - only 23ft in two weeks, while the workers got used to the equipment, but was later 80ft a week, and the south bank was reached in February 1887.

The access shafts were of cast iron segments through the water bearing strata and below that brick lined; station tunnels were also of brick. There were 18 shields used on the line, generally they were 5ft 11in diameter cylinders, built up of two thickness

of steel plates in thick riveted together, bolted to a cast iron ring at the face, with plates and channel beams bolted to this, and adjustable steel cutters which could be adjusted to corner. The under river tunnel work, 10ft 2in diameter, was made up of 1ft 7in rings of 6 segments and a key piece, and the section to the Elephant 10ft 6in in diameter made up of 1ft 8in rings. The flanges were 3in deep and 1 3/16in thick, and plates 1in thick in the City section. All holes were cast. The segments were cast from soft grey pigs dipped in a pitch and tar composition. Tarred hemp rope was packed in the joints which were pointed with Medinia cement, although iron cement was used in water bearing strata. Average progress was 2,000ft a month.

Compressed air was first employed in 1887 in the Elephant and Castle area where difficult water bearing strata were encountered. Greathead develop a hydraulic

segment lifting device and used hydraulic power to advance the shield, as well as a compressed air grouting device to fill cavities behind the shield.

The subsequent development of shield tunnelling is well known (Copperthwaite (1906)); West (1988)) and is generally associated with underground railways in urban areas for which traditional cut and cover methods became prohibitively expensive and disruptive. However, within ten years of the commencement of the City and South London link cast iron linings had been employed at Blackton Reservoir, Fiddlers Ferry, and Kingston in association with water works schemes, as well as Glasgow Harbour and Blackwall road tunnels, the Mound Railway in Edinburgh, and the Waterloo and City Railway. With these early successes it became universal practice in Britain to use a circular cast iron lining of successive rings of segments with a closing key, the only exception being on the Great Northern and City Railway where there was hand excavation and a flattened invert was used.

The diameter was much greater to use for main line traffic, and brick was used in part of the lining to reduce costs. Generally the size, weight and thickness of the segments was determined by practical considerations relating to castings and erection, rather than theoretical. Segments were 1ft 6in to 1ft 9in wide and in thick. Larger segments being used for the Blackwall and Rotherhithe road tunnels (Copperthwaite (1906). Generally the cast iron used was of relatively low grade grey cast iron (Megaw and Bartlett (1981)), brittle and of low tensile strength. Its compressible

strength has proved adequate, and generally there has been little evidence of corrosion in tunnels of over a century in service. Various bituminous and red lead coatings were used. Joints were caulked with lead wire and rust cements.

In the 1930s concrete segments were introduced and employed McApline (1935), and concrete for the Ilford extension of the Central Line in London (1939). Costs were about a third less, and since that time concrete linings have been regularly adopted. In 1947 spherical graphite cast iron was introduced and its increased tensile and impact strength made it an attractive alternative for cast iron tunnel linings. This ductile form of cast iron proved competitive with concrete linings in difficult water bearing ground for large diameter tunnels (Lyons and Reed (1974)).

Sources

C Barlow (1896) Discussion on Greathead (1895) below Min Procs ICE, 123, 75-76; W C Copperthwaite (1906) Tunnel shields and the use of compressed air in subaqueous works; J H Greathead (1896) The City and South London Railway, Min Procs, ICE, 123, 39-123; H Law (1846) A memoir of the Thames Tunnel, London, Weale; A G Lyons and A J Reed (1974) Modern cast iron tunnel and shaft linings, RETC Procs., 2, 1, 669-668; Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons (1935) The McAlpine system of reinforced concrete tunnel lining; T N Megaw and J V Bartlett (1981) Tunnels, 1, 221-225; G West (1988) Innovation and the rise of the tunnelling industry, Cambridge, University Press

F12

Design of foundations

In Britain, geotechnical engineering, in the modern sense of the term, is largely a post Second World War development. Some sense of the excitement felt by the early pioneers can be obtained from Sir Harold Hardings autobiography (Harding, ____). When one looks at the design of foundations by previous generations of engineers one must bear in mind, therefore, that they lacked many of the methods of site investigation, sampling, testing, analysis and design which are taken for granted today. Problems faced by the engineer before the war were highlighted by Terzaghi

in his 1927 paper The science of foundations - its present and future. Terzaghi. This focused on specific shortcomings of foundation design at that time: selecting allowable soil pressure regardless of the area covered by individual foundations and the maximum permissible differential settlement of the superstructure, calculating the bearing capacity of piles by the Engineering News formula without regard to the properties of the soil, and using the bearing capacity of an individual pile as a guarantee of the bearing capacity of the whole foundation. The discussion on

Terzaghis paper provides a fascinating insight into the state of soil mechanics at that time.

The question of an allowable soil pressure for the design of foundations appears to have developed on an empirical basis through the nineteenth century. One could regard foundation design of the time as a two stage process: having computed the super-imposed load of the superstructure, foundations were designed of sufficient strength to sustain this load, while selecting the foundation type and dimensions to ensure that the load would not exceed the safe bearing capacity of the ground. It is apparent there was little consensus in the late nineteenth century as to what the safe bearing capacity might be. This dilemma was highlighted by E L Corthell in 1920 when involved in the design of deep caisson foundations at Rosario Harbour in Argentina. The experienced contractors Schneider and Hersent proposed a foundation based on a load of 7.3 tons/ft. This was rejected by the Board considering the design, and after considerable discussion an allowable bearing pressure of 3.2 tons/ft was determined upon, with consequent increase in the cost of the works. Corthell was dissatisfied with the lack of consensus among engineers as to safe bearing capacities of soils, and compiled a large amount of data to illustrate the situation often based on case studies involving iron cylinder and caisson foundations.

Corthell was not the first to investigate the question. In the late 1880s I O Baker had attempted, by examining a group of case studies, to compile some guidance on safe bearing capacities of various types of ground. Even earlier, British engineers in Bengal, confronted with numerous examples of settlement and cracking of buildings in Calcutta, carried out a series of experiments to establish the optimum load on the alluvial soil of the area and the depth to which foundations should be dug, concluding

that to avoid differential settlement the load should not exceed 1 ton/ft, and in undisturbed ground the foundation depth should be 4-6ft. In 1893 Sutcliffe and Newman published some figures for various types of ground which bear many similarities to the recommendations of the 1950 Civil Engineering Code of Practice for Foundations. The first statutory regulations appear to be those contained in the iron and steel frame regulations of the 1909 London County Council (General Powers) Act. Over the next 30 years guidelines were published in various trade catalogues, some of which were more detailed than the LCC recommendations.

F13

Pile driving formulae

Another area discussed by Terzaghi was the value of dynamic pile driving formulae. From the early eighteenth century various formulae were proposed by engineers and scientists to calculate the percussive effect of piling engines, and relating the force exercised by the ram to the set and the bearing capacity of the foundation. Much was written on the subject, and a large number of formulae are listed by Chellis. Among the earliest formulae to come into widespread use were those of Woltmann and Eytelwein.

There is not much evidence to suggest these formulae were used by British engineers in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is possible that a crude formula based on the velocity of the ram as described by Cresy in his Encyclopaedia of Civil Engineering in 1847 was used.

In the second half of the nineteenth century A M Wellington developed the Engineering News formula. This was apparently widely used, and continued to be on into the early twentieth century. All of these formulae were essentially developed before steam hammers were widely used, and were modified accordingly around the end of the century.

Of the formulae developed in the first half of the twentieth century, two attracted most comment. The Hiley formula was developed in the 1920s for use with and

reproduced in piling handbooks of the time. Dissatisfaction with this and other

formulae led Oscar Faber to develop his own formulae, attempting to take account of the difference in behaviour between piles driven in clay and those driven in sand or ballast.

His formulae attracted much interest at the time, but their value was immediately questioned, particularly with reference to clay. As the science of soil mechanics has progressed and foundation technology changed, such formulae have been replaced by more reliable methods of foundation design.

Piers General P Dunkerley (1984) Construction details of 11 remaining piers. Piers Symposium, DoE, 1541 F Pearce (1982) End of the pier show. New Scientist, 298-301 E B Webb (1862) On iron breakwaters and piers J W Wilson (1875) The construction of modern piers. Society of Engineers, 29-52

ABERYSTWYTH *Royal pier pavilion, The Engineer, vol 82 (1896), p281-2, 286

ALDBOROUGH, SUFFOLK The Engineer, vol 46, 1878, pp 182-4

BANGOR Anon (1984) Onshore rescue, Building, 5 October, 37-40 J Barter (1984) The Restoration of Bangor Pier, Pier Symposium, DoE, 68

BIRCH, Eugenius Obituary, ICE Minutes of Proceedings, vol 78, pp 414-416. DNB Missing persons volume Piers newsletter

BIRCH, R W P Designed concert hall on Brighton west pier. Nephew of Eugenius. Associate of ICE 6/12/1870, member 25/5/1880. Photograph in ICE collection - Cartes de visites.

BLACKPOOL North (HEW 646) Anon (1863) Artizan, 21 166-; Anon (1863), Notes from the Northern and Eastern Counties, Engineer, 15, 312

NEW PIER at BLACKPOOL

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BLACKPOOL SOUTH (HEW 1005) Engineer, 75, 49

BOGNOR Anon (1865) Artizan, 23, 142

BOSCOME F B Dolamore (1926-1927) Some recent work at Bournemouth, Procs Instn Munic & County Engineers, 53, 598-603

BOURNEMOUTH Anon (1900) Proposed pier pavilion in Bournemouth, Builder, 276-277 Civil engineering & public works review, April 1948 The show must go on Contract jnl, 10 July 1980 G. Rideout(1980)Victorian legacy hampers Bournemouth pier access, New Civil Engineer, 31 Jan, 22-23 R Bond (1980) Bournemouth all set for a walk across the briny Surveyor 12 June, 7-8

BRIGHTON Chain pier, effects of Teredo Navalis & protection to be added to piles, Mechanics Magazine, vol 43, 1845, S Brown Chain pier - The Engineer, vol 73, 1892, 198-199 Palace pier: [HEW 429] Engineer, 73, 1892, 91-92, 136-137; S. Wade (1973) Rogue barge batters Brighton pier, NCE 25 October, p.12; W D Everett (1984) Brighton Palace Pier ... Pier Symposium, DoE, 42-46 Private cash preserves Palace pride NCE 26 June 1986, 42-44 West Pier - Anon (1866) [HEW 212] New Pier at Brighton, Engineering, vol.2, 284, Mechanics magazine, 16, 1866, 230 P Reina (1975) How near is the end of Brighton pier, NCE 6 February, 20-21

Anon (1979) Competition to save Brighton Pier, RIBA, Journal, October, 86, 433-434 P. Reina(1980) Brighton pier close to demolition NCE 17 April 1980, 9; 3 million appeal to save Brightons West Pier NCE 14 June 1979, 8; More troubles for Brighton pier 9 March 1978; D Seare (1984) Make or break for West Pier, NCE 26 July, 20-22 J Scatchard (1984) Structural condition of Brighton West Pier, Pier Symposim, DoE, 62-64, 82-83 M Soudain (1997) Return to glory days, New Civil Engineer, 24 April, 26-28

BRODICK RTC 1895, 150

CLACTON Anon (1896) Pier pavilion at Clacton-on-Sea Engineering, 61, 1896, 372-374

CLEVEDON (HEW 430) J W Grover and R. Ward (1871) Description of a wrought iron pier at Min Procs ICE ,32, 130-136; The new Clevedon pier, Engineering, 4, 1867, 527-528, 532; 7, 1869, 32; Engineering, 47 (1889) 128 Anon (1869) Clevedon pier Illustrated London News 10 April 1869, 369-370 N Barrett (1988) Pier comes back, NCE 18 Aug; S McCormack (1985) Clevedon pier in dock NCE 18 July, 14-15; J Parkinson (1982) Clevedon pier preservation case gathers momentum, NCE 24 June, 18-19 Allman (1981) Clevedon pier - Preservation beside the seaside Chartered surveyor Oct 1981 Clevedon pier is falling down Engineering July, 1971; K Mallory (1981) Clevedon Pier; R Fenton (1984) Clevedon Pier: special problems relating to its restoration, Piers Symposium, DoE, 65-67 Clevedon, Somerset,

CROMER Anon (1900) The Builder, vol 79, 113; The Builder, vol 80, 1901

DEAL (HEW 715) J Parkinson (1978) Good deal for Deal pier NCE 10 Aug, 20-29 Contract jnl 14 June 1956; Surveyor 23 Nov 1957

DOUGLAS The promenade pier at Douglas, Engineering, 6, 1868, 524; New iron pier at Douglas, 8, 1869, 153

EASTBOURNE (HEW 431)

FALMOUTH (HEW 1896)

FELIXSTOWE Anon (1905) The Builder, vol 89, 21

FLEETWOOD

See Dunkerley (1986)

FOLKESTONE H. T. Ker (1907-1908) Folkestone pier Min Procs ICE, 171, 49Anon (1887) New promenade pier and pavilion at Folkestone, Engineer, 63, 416, 418, 420; Folkestone new pier and harbour works (1904), Engineering, 78, 37-41

GREAT YARMOUTH Anon (1900) New pier for Yarmouth, The Builder, vol 79, 596 Anon (1902) New pier at Great Yarmouth, The Engineer, vol93, 628 M J Watkiss & H W Doe. Restoration of Yarmouth pier (part of Seaside piers: opportunities and problems) S P Thompson (1928) Wellington pier - new entrance, Procs Instn Munic & County Engineers, 55, 414;

HASTINGS Hastings pier, Engineering, 8, 1869, 127 G F Miller (1917) Hastings pier parade extension, Procs Instn Munic & County Engineers, 44, 40-46;

HERNE BAY J Rickman (ed) (1838) Life of Thomas Telford; J M Higgins (1844) Restoration of the Herne Bay Pier, Weales Quarterly papers on engineering, 2, CE&AJ, 1862, 25, p.247 The ceremony, Engineer (1896), 82, 215 B J Wormleignton (1927-1928) The pier, Procs Instn Munic & County Engineers, 54, 572574 Piers down , NCE, 19 Jan 1978, 5

ILFRACOMBE Dumbleton(1983) Poorly pier gets fitted fabric prop NCE 28 Nov, 14-18

LEE-on-SOLENT YATES COOK & DARBYSHIRE (1936) New pier buildings Architect, 27 march 400-403

LLANDUDNO (HEW 432) E. Hutchinson (1879) Girder making, 135, 137 P Dunkerley (1984) Construction details of 11 remaining piers, Piers Symposium, DoE, 1541

LYTHAM Anon (1865) Mechanics Magazine, 13, 255 T. Mellor (1947) Entrance building to Lytham Pier, Archts jnl, 24 April, 339-340

MARGATE The Builder, 11, 1853, 323; The Builder, 1855, p.450-451; Margate jetty, Civil engineer and architects journal, 25, 1862, 247; Margate pier improvements, Engineering, 11, 431, 436.

What price Margate pier, Daily Telegraph 25 March 1979; Army manoeuvres for Margate pier, NCE 23 Feb 1978, 9; Third time lucky, NCE 1 Feb 1979, 5

MERSEY FERRY PIERS C G Smith, The design and construction of south reserve landing stage and pier at Birkenhead (i.e., Wallasey), Min Procs ICE, 5, 164; J L Potts (1881) The construction of Egremont Ferry landing pier, Liverpool Engineering Society, Transactions, 1, 118; W S Boult (1881) Putting down screw piles through very hard clay at Seacombe, Liverpool Engineering Society, 1, 129

MORECOMBE CENTRAL Engineer (1856) 2, 526 P Dunkerley (1984) Construction details of 11 remaining piers, Piers Symposium, DoE, 1541 MORECOMBE WEST T P Worthington (1893). Proposed pier, Engineer, 75, p.49; NCE 17 Nov 1977, p.7

MUMBLES Anon (1890) Mumbles railway and pier, Engineering 50, 339

NEW BRIGHTON Illustrated London News, 51, 1867, 269-270; Reconstruction, The Engineer, vol 150, 1930, pp 262

PAIGNTON Proposed new pier at Paignton Builder, 10 March 1950

PENARTH Penarth Pier, Engineering 47, (1889), 128; 49, (1890), 768; 50, (1890) 673

PORTSMOUTH R S Jenkins (1928-1929) South parade pier, Procs Instn Munic & County Engineers, 55, 578

RAMSGATE *Anon (1883) Iron promenade pier, Ramsgate, The Engineer, vol 53, 382-386

RAMSAY P Dunkerley (1984) Construction details of 11 remaining piers, Piers Symposium, DoE, 1541

RHYL Illustrated London News (1867), 51, 199

ST ANNES J L Potts (1892) Notes on screwing cast iron and driving greenheart piles at St Annes on the Sea, Lancashire, Liverpool Engineering Society, Transactions, 13, 13-27 P Dunkerley (1984) Construction details of 11 remaining piers, Piers Symposium, DoE, 1541

RYDE Anon (1859) Ryde new pier, Artizan, 17, 212; Railway magazine, 1904, 124; 1954, 564-568; Dec 1963, 110-; 1916 (2)153

St LEONARDS-on-SEA New promenade pier, The Engineer, vol.65, (1888), pp 380-381; 73, (1892) 115; Engineering, 45, 1888, 334; Structural Engineer, January-February 1933;

SALTBURN The End of the pier in sight Yorkshire post, 12 Feb 1975

SEAVIEW (HEW 716) Suspension pier at Seaview, Isle of Wight, Engineering 31, (1881), 606-7

SHANKLIN Railway magazine 1913(1) 12

SKEGNESS The Engineer, vol 49, (1880), pp 42 & 44, 62, 72 S Hannan and D Robinson(1979) The End of the pier Lincolnshire Life, Feb, 9 L Hellman (1985) Plague on ideas, Architects jnl, 181, 29 May, 28-30

SOUTHEND J. Paton (1850) Description of pier head of old Southend pier ICE Mins of Procs, 9, 23-40 Pier extension by James Simpson, CE&AJ, 1862, p247 Building news 55, 1888, 476 A Ficker (1901) The Municipal works of Southend-on-Sea, Procs Assn Muni & County Engineers, 28, 47-48 E J Elford, Sewerage and other municipal works, Southend-on-Sea, Procs Instn Munic & County Engineers, 40, 709-714; Protecting Southend pier Consulting engineer, Dec 1954; Corrosion technology, Oct 1955; Trollop (1976) Elevator, lift & ropeway engineer Nov/Dec 1972; Chartered Municipal engineer Nov; Piers future hangs in balance NCE 7 Aug 1976, 10 R H R Douglas. Case study - Southend Pier from Seaside Piers: opportunities and problems conf Engineer, 187, 177; Southend pier parted NCE 3 July, 1986, 5

SOUTHAMPTON Anon (1892) The New pier at Southampton, Engineering, 54, 307 J Lemon (1892) Description of the New Royal Pier at Southampton, IMechE, Procs., 313-318

SOUTHPORT Anon (1860) Southport pier, Illustrated London News, 37, 162 Anon (1861) Southport pier, Artizan, 110 H Hooper (1861) Description of the pier at Southport, Min Procs., ICE, 20, 292-299 Anon (186?) Southport pier, Mechanics magazine, ns, vol.5, 159 *Sinking piles at the Southport pier, Engineering, 5, 1868, 411 W Humber (1863) Record of modern engineering, 8-9 P Dunkerley (1984) Construction details of 11 remaining piers, Piers Symposium, DoE, 1541

SWANAGE (HEW 1634) M Du-Plat-Taylor (1928) Swanage pier repairs Instn Munic. Eng. Procs, 55, Oct, 489-492

TORQUAY (HEW 1640) H A Garrett (1894) Municipal and harbour engineering works, Torquay, Procs Assn Munic & County Engineers, 20, 182-184, 188; H A Garrett (1910-1911) Municipal engineering works, Torquay, Procs Institution of Municipal & County Engineers, 37, 302, 305-306

VENTNOR Railway magazine, 1913(1), 12

WALTON-ON-THE-NAZE PHEW report

WESTON SUPER MARE Birnbeck Pier (HEW 434) Anon (1867) New pier at Weston-super-Mare, Illustrated London News, 15 June, 600-610 Western-super-Mare Pier Company, Engineering, 1886, 41, 223 Institution of Civil Engineers (1924) Report on the corrosion of iron and steel in the landing stage at Western-super-Mare, Sea Action Committee Report, 28-39

WEYMOUTH V J Wenning (1939) New Bandstand pier, Builder, 9 June, 1083-1084;

WITHENSEA The Engineer, vol 45, 1878, pp 62,66

WOOLWICH J W Grover, Pier at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, Engineering, 7, 1869, 20-21

WORTHING

The Worthing pier, Engineering, 17 October 1866, 288; P E Harvey (1925) Recent municipal works in Worthing, Procs Instn Munic & County Engineers, 51, 937-938; Worthing pier gets a lift, Civil engineering, Dec 1980

[Checked Engineer Index; PIANC 1885-1900; Min Procs ICE; Humber; Bibliographies, card index; Mechs mag, n.s.; J G James collection; Builder observations index; Cleveland Engineering Society; Liverpool Engineering Society; North East County Engineers Society; mechs mag n.s., Engineering 1886-1880 and passim; IMechE Procs; IMechE]

National Piers Society, 82 Speed House, Barbican, London EC2Y 8AU