People Gallery

Swinging dummy JLP01_09_860854

Laing Sports Ground, Rowley Lane, Elstree, Barnet, Greater London. People competing in the swinging dummy stage of the It's a Knockout style competition at the 1986 Family Day at Laing's Sports Ground.
Over 2500 people attended the Family Day and raised over £700 for that year's designated charity The British Heart Foundation. Attractions included; guest appearances by the cast of the television programme Grange Hill, a bouncy castle, donkey rides, Punch and Judy shows, Pierre the Clown, children's races, blindfold stunt driving and golf and six-a-side football tournaments. Eight teams entered the It's a knockout competition and it was won by a team named The Floppies from the Information Services Department. This photograph was used in the August 1986 edition of Team Spirit, the Laing company newsletter reporting on the event

© Historic England Archive

Photographer and model JLP01_08_073450

JOHN LAING AND SON LIMITED, PAGE STREET, MILL HILL, BARNET, GREATER LONDON. A photographer taking a photo of a model in the studio of the new Sports Club centre soon after the centre's opening.
By 1966, membership of the Laing Sports Club had reached 2,500 throughout the country. A new Sports Club wing opened at John Laing and Son Ltd's offices at Mill Hill on 28th April 1966. The new centre had two floors which a billiards room, club rooms, sports shop, photographic studio, and offices. A coffee lounge, table tennis hall and TV lounge were separated by folding doors and could be converted into a large meeting hall. In the photograph, a poster advertising The Laing Sports Club, Photography Section, Tenth Annual Exhibition is on the studio wall

© Historic England Archive

Shaft for column foundations JLP01_08_083513

HEATHROW AIRPORT, B E A SERVICING HANGAR, HEATHROW, HILLINGDON, GREATER LONDON. A man looking upwards in a 75ft shaft lined with reinforcement steel, part of the foundations of the BEA aircraft servicing hangar at Heathrow Airport.
In October 1969 Laing announced that its Industrial Engineering Branch had been awarded a contract for construction of an aircraft servicing hangar for British European Airways at Heathrow Airport. It was the company's second major contract at Heathrow, following the completion of the BEA and BOAC cargo terminal. The hangar was designed to accommodate new airbus jets and existing aircraft. Four 75ft shafts were sunk for the foundations. The excavation of each shaft began with an in situ concrete ring beam near ground level. Rings of a caisson, which formed the upper half of each shaft, were then sunk through 30ft of clay. Men worked at the bottom of the shaft to excavate the remaining 45ft, and fixed precast segmental concrete rings to the structure as the shaft descended. Construction of the shafts began in October 1969, and when completed they were filled with concrete in two stages: the lower sections were filled with 250 cubic yards of concrete in a continuous pour on 27th February 1970, and the upper sections were filled after a column was positioned in each shaft. This photograph was published in the April 1970 edition of Team Spirit, the Laing employee newsletter

© Historic England Archive