To give an idea of the range of projects in which we were involved in 2007, below is an outline of some of our work.

1. St Michael's Mount Causeway

SWG, who not only routinely carry out investigations and designs for new highways, were part of the team who investigated the 0.5km 15th century Causeway between St Michael’s Mount and Marazion, Cornwall, for the National Trust.  The site is a prime heritage tourist attraction of significant historic importance. The Engineer for the works was Black and Veatch (Plymouth Office).

The SWG site team was augmented with specialist archaeologists from Cornwall County Council.  Not only were engineering characteristics of the original construction required, but samples of the various medieval materials used were collected for analysis.

As access to the Causeway is restricted to low to mid tide, working shifts had to commence at odd hours, and needed to end in a timely manner!  Access to the public also had to be maintained during working hours, giving stringent H&S requirements

2. Norton Fitzwarren Dam

SWG acted as Geotechnical Advisor and Earthworks Control Engineers to Jackson Civil Engineering Ltd during their construction of this 6m high 500m long earth dam during summer 2007.  This followed on from SWG’s initial interpretative site investigation and earthworks scheduling for the project.  The design engineer for the works was Hyder Consulting (Bristol Office).

The dam is of zoned construction, and used around 40,000 cubic metres of selected soil fill, which was won from borrow pits immediately upstream.  The borrow pits have been reinstated as environmental wetlands. The dam will protect future housing to be constructed downstream of the site, from flooding.

SWG have investigated and designed several dams and lakes over the years, including the following: 

Density testing of compacted earth layers,
Norton Fitzwarren

3. Deep Borehole Research for British Geological Survey

SWG were the selected Drilling Contractor to assist the British Geological Survey with their re-drawing of the geological map for the Glastonbury area.  Two 100m deep rotary coreholes were put down for this purpose around Glastonbury Tor, Somerset.

The main purpose of the exercise was to obtain a full section of the Jurassic Lower Lias strata, and examine the boundary with the underlying Triassic Mercia Mudstone. It is understood that this is the first time that the full sequence of the Lower Lias has been recovered and logged.

Drilling quality requirements were stringent; 100% recovery was imperative, and was comfortably met by the SWG crew.

Find out more about this interesting scientific project here.

4. Blackpool Tramway Investigated

Venturing some way north of our usual patch, our specialist railway expertise took us to the heritage site of the historic Blackpool Tramway. 

Works had to be carried out during night times to permit continual running of the tram service. SWG were selected for their renown reliability and ability to get rail investigation projects completed safely within a tight time frame.

5. Plate Bearing Tests for Falmouth Wind Turbines

On behalf of Dean and Dyball, SWG were commissioned to check ground conditions for the erection of a wind turbine cluster at Penryn, Cornwall.

The photograph shows plate bearing test, Penryn, Cornwall, December 2007

6. New Structure for Blundell's School

During the summer of 2007, an investigation was required for a new structure at Blundell’s School, Tiverton.

The proposed site was on an area of reclaimed marshy fenland, and consequently special foundations were required to penetrate both the made ground, and the marsh deposits below.

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