People Gallery

Watching live feed JLP01_08_065657

PATERNOSTER SQUARE, CITY OF LONDON. A group of guests watching the topping out ceremony for a 10-storey block at the Paternoster development on closed circuit television.
Work on the Paternoster development was carried out in a joint venture by John Laing Construction Limited, Trollope and Colls Limited, and George Wimpey and Company Limited. The development consisted of a series of office blocks, a shopping precinct, an extensive piazza and a three-level car park. On Tuesday 28th May, a 10-storey block was topped out at the Paternoster development. A copper cylinder containing copies of The Times, Financial Times, Team Spirit, and a list of signatures of those working on the site was lifted to the roof by N C Macnamara. There it was embedded in the final pour of concrete. The guests were unable to watch the final pour of concrete at roof level due to heavy rain, and instead they stood inside the building and watched the proceedings on closed circuit television. On the same day as the topping out ceremony, another 10-storey block, Courtenay House, was officially handed over to the Central Electricity Generating Board

© Historic England Archive

Formwork construction JLP01_08_073399e

Restell Close, Greenwich,
Greater London. A Sectra block of nurses flats under construction on Restell Close, with the steel formwork in place for the next storey to be built.
This residential block for nurses was one of three 10-storey, H-shaped blocks, built by Laing's Construction Company for the South-East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, using the Sectra system. The flats were built on a high point just off Vanbrugh Hill with views over Greenwich, Deptford and the River Thames, providing self-contained flats of three and four rooms for nurses who worked at Greenwich Hospital. The blocks were named Jenner House, Lister House and Norfolk House. In 2007, two of the blocks were demolished and Norfolk House was reclad and subsequently renamed Leamington Court.
Sectra was a French prefabricated steel formwork design for flats which John Laing and Son Ltd acquired the British rights to in 1962. It was a method of using precision made
steel formwork for the placing of structural concrete in tunnel sections in room unit widths and ceiling heights. The units were bolted together in rows on special tracks, with the concrete poured to form the walls and floors in one operation. The formwork was internally heated to accelerate the hardening of the concrete in the mould and the sections were then lifted into position by a tower crane on the construction site

© Historic England Archive

Removing earlier foundations JLP01_08_079117

Minories Car Park, 1 Shorter Street, City of London. A man in a suit stands in the basement excavations of Minories Car Park as two workers behind him break up concrete with pneumatic drills.
Laing built the Minories Car Park between July 1968 and December 1969. The site was a former Victorian railway yard. The brick and concrete bases of two locomotive turntables were in the way of the car park's piling foundations. They were eventually removed with controlled explosions

© Historic England Archive