Elgin Place Congregational Church Destruction

[gap74]

[Structural Partnership Document with measurements taken of cracks in rear wall on 20/12/04 and 22/12/04. Three measuring points were used, numbered 1-3, with Top and Bottom readings for 1 & 3, and an additional Middle reading for 2. The info here is all that is presented, no diagrams or units of measurement are provided]

20/12/04

POINT OFFSET CRACK WIDTH

1 BTM 2360 14
1 TOP 2465 7
2 BTM 2240 80
2 TOP 2220 39
2 MDL 2185 7
3 BTM 2330 17
3 TOP 2230 2


22/12/04

POINT OFFSET CRACK WIDTH

1 BTM 2358 14
1 TOP 2465 7
2 BTM 2235 80
2 TOP 2267 42
2 MDL 2185 10
3 BTM 2330 22
3 TOP 2215 3

[gap74]

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION SERVICES
BUILDING CONTROL AND PUBLIC SAFETY
EMERGENCY INCIDENT REPORT

IR No. 04/189A

Surveyor in Charge: B.Clews

Date Incident Reported: 24/12/2004
Time Incident Reported: 14:30
Time Arrived at Incident: 15:15
Origin of Report: Mr Ian Gass, Structural Engineer

Locus: 193 Pitt Street

Nature of Incident: Report of ongoing structural movement of the gable of the property.

Action Taken:
A site inspection with Mr Harry Palmer. It should be noted that the building had already suffered extensive damage as a result of a previous fire. It was observed that a severe bulge had now occurred to the stonework at the base of the west gable of the property. The bulge was located at the northern-most end of the back wall of the property, between the ground and first floors. There was also evidence of a new crack in the stonework immediately adjacent to the bulge.
As a consequence, the gable wall was assessed as being in immediately dangerous condition and required to be demolished.
The occupiers who were found to be in residence at the immediately adjacent premises of 224A/224/246/248 Bath Street were advised to vacate their properties, in the interests of public safety, and all elected to so do.
The owner of the affected property at 193 Pitt Street elected to instruct a demolition contractor to demolish the dangerous gable in the interests of public safety, under Section 13(1)b. The existing exclusion zone around the site was extended further to the west, at the front and back of the site, in order to prevent access to the adjacent buildings at 244/244A/246/248 Bath Street. During the course of these works the gable collapsed onto the adjacent tenement. Further assessment to be carried out regarding this occurrence.

[Details of individuals and businesses evacuated omitted]

Summary of Discussions: Adjacent premises to be evacuated due to condition of affected property

Other Staff Members Who Attended Incident:
Mr Stuart Murie – Group Manager
Mr Malcolm Innes – Team Leader
Mr Harry Palmer – Principal Engineer
Mr Brian Kelly – Building Control Surveyor

[overtime information omitted]

Other Relevant Information:
At approximately 8:45pm, the owner’s representative (Mr Ian Gass – Structural Engineer) advised that further preparatory works would be required in order to provide protection to the footpath and that the gable demolition works could not be progressed further until those protective measures were provided. This meant the most remote part of the west gable was inaccessible, as the demolition machine could not mount the pavement to get adequate reach. It was agreed that the remaining works to the gable would be left until the next day (Christmas Day) when the protection to the footpath was to be made available. The owner’s representative was advised to contact the Building Control Service should any further problems arise.

The emergency contact telephone numbers of the on-duty Building Control Service Quick Response Surveyors (Billy Clews xxxxx-xxxxxx and Terry Callaghan xxxxx-xxxxxx) were left with the foreman of the demolition contractor (Mr Ricky Hay – Dem-Master)

[gap74]

Glasgow City Council
Building Control and Public Safety
231 George Street
Glasgow G1 1RX

Our Ref: SM/NW & C

06 January 2005-03-06

The Structural Partnership
Victoria Chambers
142 West Nile Street
Glasgow
G1 2RQ

FAO: Mr I. Gass

Dear Sir,

BUILDING (SCOTLAND) ACT 1959 AS AMENDED, Section 13(1)(b)
IR NUMBER: 04/0189A
ADDRESS: 193 Pitt Street & 240 Bath Street
INCIDENT: Fire damage to property and collapse of west gable

I refer to the above dangerous building incident which was reported on 24 December 2004.

I would confirm that in discussion with this Service the following works were instructed by you on behalf of the owner to address the incident:

1) Demolish entire property, clear site of demolition debris and erect site hoarding

I acknowledge that these works were commenced to my satisfaction on 26 December 2004 and are currently in progress.

I am obliged for your co-operation in this regard.

Yours faithfully

Stuart Murie
Group Manager
Building Control & Public Safety

COPY SENT TO: TECHNICAL SUPPORT TEAM
BCS
FILE
Balcombe Group plc, 18 Sandyford Place, Glasgow, G3 7NB

[gap74]

BUILDING CONTROL FILE NOTE

DATE: 10th January 2005

PREPARED BY: S. Murie

SUBJECT: Demolition of former Elgin Place Church

The above property required to be demolished as a matter of some urgency following deterioration in the building’s structural condition over the Xmas holiday period. Outline of circumstances leading to this occurrence.

26 November 2004

Property was seriously damaged by fire. Upon extinguishing of the fire and initial investigations by the fire and police services the building was released to the owners and assessed as a dangerous building.

Immediate public safety concerns addressed by exclusion zone set around the building and security watchmen installed on 24hr cover. Appraisal of the structure identified a substantial structural bulge to the west gable and bulging to the south wall as additional concerns to the building having lost much of its lateral stability with the collapse of the roof structure during the fire.

Reports from the owner’s consulting structural engineers concluded that most viable solution to address the structural dangers would be to demolish the building. Building control do not dispute this view, with caveat that, given the building’s listed status, the erection of structural stabilisation works would be technically possible, albeit intrinsically difficult and expensive.

Development & Regeneration Services identified the preference to further explore the possibility of retention and to facilitate this no immediate decision was taken regarding the removal of the danger but the property structurally monitored in the interim.

17 December 2004

Dangerous Building Notice served.

24 December 2004

Structural monitoring revealed west gable deteriorating to an extent that it was considered to be in danger of collapsing. This necessitated the evacuation of the adjoining tenement at 244/248 Bath Street in the interests of safety. To remove danger, operations to demolish this gable commenced. During works the gable collapsed onto the gable of the adjacent tenement. Works were then suspended to allow assessment during daylight.

25th December 2004

Appraisal determined that in addition to a large amount of fire debris, a substantial mass of the gable’s masonry was lying against the tenement gable creating a risk of serious structural damage to that building. It was a prime concern that no further load be allowed to surcharge onto this gable and that the collapsed material be removed off the gable at the earliest opportunity. The loss of the gable also had a significant adverse impact on the stability of the north and south elevational walls of the church building.

26th December 2005

A meeting to allow the specialist demolition contractor to consider options to remove the collapse safely without further damage being caused to 244/248 Bath Street and in light of the unstable elevational walls of the church.

Meeting attended by BC & PS engineering and surveying staff, owner’s onsulting engineers, Development & Regeneration Services, Strathclyde Fire Brigade’s Fire Investigation Unit and consulting engineers in behalf of the building’s insurers.

Debate determined that the placement of any mechanical plant onto the collapsed rubble would adversely surcharge the tenement’s gable most probably causing structural damage. This outcome was also anticipated if the elevational walls of the church were to be collapsed internally to allow mechanical plant access to the building remote from the adjacent tenement’s gable. The reaction of the east elevation of the church to such works was also an unknown.

Consequently, it was concluded that, to safely carry out any further works and minimise the risk of substantial damage to any adjacent premises taking cognisance of the advanced structural deterioration of the church following the fire and collapse, the only option was to commence demolition from the Pitt Street elevation of the church moving west towards the collapsed gable removing collapsed material and load away from 224/228 Bath Street.

Works commenced on the 27th December under the instruction of the property owner and are now substantially advanced with completion allowing the removal of all restrictions on vehicular traffic scheduled in approximately three weeks.

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THE STRUCTURAL PARTNERSHIP
GW2699/9

SHACK & TRASH NIGHTCLUBS

STRUCTURAL REPORT ON SEQUENCE OF EVENTS LEADING TO EMERGENCY DEMOLITION OF PROPERTY

Client
Kapital Ltd
242 Bath Street
GLASGOW


REPORT

On 16th December 2004 the Structural Engineers from Ramsey McMichael Consulting Ltd raised concern on behalf of the property insurers on the stability of the north gable wall.

A meeting was therefore arranged on 17th December 2004 to inspect the wall. In attendance were The Structural Partnership & Building Control.

It was agreed that The Structural Partnership would install monitoring stations and take daily readings pending agreement of an overall structural solution for the property.

A Section 13 Notice was also issued by Building Control on Friday 17th December 2004 to the building owners Kapital Ltd.

Following this an overall updated Structural report was issued on Monday 20th December 2004 by Structural Partnership and monitoring of the building commenced.

On Friday 24th December 2004 building control highlighted signs of fresh cracking to the gable wall.

Following this further monitoring readings were taken by the Structural Partnership indicating significant outward movement of the gable wall at basement level where significant bulges were evident.

Inspection of the readings taken from Monday 20th December through to Friday 24th December (see Appendix A) indicated that there was progressive outward movement of the wall and these readings were passed on to Building Control.

A further meeting took place in the afternoon of the 24th December with Building Control and the Structural Partnership at which Building Control instructed the evacuation of the adjoining tenement and agreed that immediate partial demolition of west gable was required to make the property safe.

The Structural Partnership instructed Dem-Master Demolition to mobilise immediately to provide suitable plant to carry out the works.

Due to the unstable condition of the wall hand demolition was considered to be unsafe and therefore remote machine demolition was instructed.

Demolition of the gable wall commenced around 7:30pm on Friday 24th December the wall was partially taken down to first floor level by 9:00pm at which time it was agreed that no further works could be carried out until a further assessment was carried out in daylight.

Shortly after this about 9:10pm the adjacent section of gable wall collapsed into the external well with rubble piled up against the tenement gable wall to halfway up ground floor level.

An inspection of the collapsed wall was carried out on Saturday 25th December at which time it was agreed that further discussions with the demolition contractor would be required on a safe method of removing the rubble.

The collapse had also affected the rear gable wall of the main building leaving a fully exposed and unrestrained high level side elevation wall in a potentially unstable condition (see photographs).

Following discussions with Building Control, Structural Partnership and the demolition contractor on Sunday 26th December it was agreed that removal of the rubble from the side wall was impractical and unsafe and could possibly result in a further collapse of the unstable rubble and walls onto the adjacent tenement gable.

All parties therefore agreed that the only practical and safe option available was to demolish the entire building starting from the front towards the rear collapsed wall pulling the material back as the demolition progressed.

The demolition contractor was instructed accordingly and a method statement produced and agreed together with HSE notification.

Demolition commenced on Tuesday 28th December 2004 at 8:00am in accordance with the method statement provided and the building was taken down in a safe manner by remote machine method with the bulk of the demolition complete by Friday 31st December with the rubble removed from the tenement gable to allow a structural inspection.

The wall was inspected by Building Control and The Structural Partnership at 2:30pm and confirmed to be structurally sound allowing the tenements of the adjacent property back into their flats.

Some minor stone damage was however evident mainly around ground floor windows.

Removal of demolition rubble and site clearance is now proceeding with completion estimated to be around 31st January.

Signed Ian Gass BSc CEng MICE MIStructE MaPS
For The Structural Partnership

[Monitoring results given in previous document omitted, with a few further measurements taken up to Dec 24th. Also some photos which have photocopied pretty much as black rectangles, although the FOI officer has offered access to view these if required]

[gap74]

OK, I lied, there were 9 more documents, not 8!

So that's all I have, like I said, I'll be away till Tuesday now, so if anyone has any further questions about the documents, feel free to PM me and I'll get back to you then.

When I do return, however, I'll probably delete the posts, since I'm concerned about copyright and the Data Protection Act, so make use of them while you can - after they're removed, however, I'll probably still email copies to anyone who wants them!

Hope they are of some use to someone in this whole affair....

Gary

[duncan]

When I do return, however, I'll probably delete the posts, since I'm concerned about copyright and the Data Protection Act, so make use of them while you can - after they're removed, however, I'll probably still email copies to anyone who wants them!

don't do that! These have been released under FOI, things like Data Protection and Copyright don't apply. The information is now in the public domain, leave it up as it's of great interest I reckon. If in doubt, check with the Information Commissioner.

[lordsleek]

Saw the site for the first time yesterday. They didn't mess about did they. However I was wondering about the area in general I saw two other greek revival style churches within 5 minutes walk. Was this a major fashion or did "greek" thomson do them all?

[escotregen]

It was all part of a wider 'Greek Revivalism' style in Scotland in the 18th Century. Thompson was probably the lead proponant with his designs. I had an interesting talk with Ronnie when we did one of the pilot walks of the Necropolis for his bookk - soon to be available in all good bookshops ). At first glance it seems odd that a pagan style became the dominant form of Scottish Churches at the time. However, it's down to links between Presbyterian Churches that saw themselves as not only being staunch and true to God, but also as bringing rationality to religion. Moreover, the Scottish Enlightenment was at its heady height at the time -hence their happiness at being linked with the earlier rationality and enlightenment of the great Greek and Egyptian societies.

[nodrog]

When I do return, however, I'll probably delete the posts, since I'm concerned about copyright and the Data Protection Act, so make use of them while you can - after they're removed, however, I'll probably still email copies to anyone who wants them!

Hope they are of some use to someone in this whole affair....

Gary

I _think_ we're probably all right; according to this council document:

Information obtained from this publication scheme or publications list, or supplied in response to an FOI request, can be copied or reproduced without formal permission provided it is copied or reproduced accurately, is not used in a misleading context and provided that the source of the material is identified and the copyright status acknowledged. However, please note that use of any material published in terms of this Publication Scheme remains copyright © Glasgow City Council 2005 unless otherwise stated. Any further use of the material must comply with the terms of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 as amended and/or the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997. Commercial exploitation or reproduction of this material is prohibited.

Full details at
http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/ ... sion11.pdf

[gap74]

Well OK, in the light of that info, I'll keep it posted - guess the worst that can happen is that the good lady Provost comes round and tries to batter me.

Greetings from Amsterdam folks, and may I say that if Glasgow City Council were in charge round here, there would be vast empty wastelands as far as the eye can see, given the number of crooked, lop-sided, gravity-defying little canal side properties here!

Gary

[Closet Classicist]

Thanks for the rest of the information Gary. Interesting reading indeed. Confirms my thinking. No one appeared to cross reference with Historic Scotland regarding the long term history of structural problems with the rear gable, despite the request by the building insurers structural engineer to do so. Also it is quite evident that it was technically feasible to save the building and this had been known about very early on. So why did this not happen? If these measures had been put in place right after the conflagration as HS had said they should be the facade would still be standing today and the gable could have been removed safely. But because of bureaucratic procedure and ironically because of procedures put in place to ensure the protection of listed buildings from demolition we have wound up with nothing! Whats wrong with this picture!

Oh and by the way escotregen and Lordsleek Gothic architecture was perceived as a catholic style as it dated from the pre-reformation era.

Cheers

CC

[escotregen]

Closet I'm confused by ... "Gothic architecture was perceived as a catholic style as it dated from the pre-reformation era" I was referring to the post Reformation rationalism-influenced Greek Revivalism. As per from Herman's 'How the Scots invented the Modern World':
"Unlike their French counterparts, the great minds of the Scottish Enlightenment never saw Christianity as their mortal enemy - not even Hume, the self-proclaimed skeptic. For the clerical disciples of Hutcheson, Church and Enlightenment were natural allies, in much the same way as science and the humanities were not pitted against each other, but were two halves of the same intellectual enterprise."
Are you advising that pre-Reformation Gothic and Greek Revivalism are the same?
On a point of correction I referred earlier to 18th instead of 19th century.

[Closet Classicist]

Sorry escotregen should have explained that one better! I was trying to illustrate that it was the flip side to what you wrote regarding greek revivalism. The Victorian Gothic revival was associated with a move towards a ressurection of a medieval architecture as they believed that that style of architecture represented the spirit of an age they admired for its social structure rather than the rationalism of the Greek revival which had begun to be associated with utiltarianism. There was also a belief that Gothic architecture was associated with catholicism as the style developed in the pre reformation days of only one church. This was probably the main reason that Gothic architecture was not embraced so readily in Scotland and the Greek revival continued for another two generations at least

[escotregen]

Thanks for the clarification that is interesting in itself. I was not aware of this direct juxtaposition between the Gothic and Greek styles. Something learned already today