Piles of piles make way for the turbine

The first major stage of the Archimedes Screw turbine installation has now been completed: the piling.

Huge metal piles, each 6 metres long, have been hammered into the ground behind the Snuff Mill, using gentle vibrations to minimise disturbance to the historic buildings nearby. The piles will form a temporary wall around the turbine site, to allow construction to take place without water coming in from the river.

Carrying piles on to the site (Mackley Construction)

  The hydraulic 'jaw" holds a pile in place (Mackley Construction)

One of the piles is hammered in (Mackley Construction)

   

 The completed piling (Mackley Construction)

The site with piles in place - from the Snuff Mill window (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

The piles will be left in place but cut off below ground level, once the work is complete.

Stable yard wins top RICS award!

The Morden Hall Park Stable Yard has just scooped first prize in the Design and Innovation category at the 2012 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) annual awards ceremony - beating off some incredibly tough competition, so it's a fantastic achievement! 

The RICS London Awards aim to showcase outstanding talent from the property industry.
The awards ceremony was held at the National Maritime Museum and attracted the great and the good from the surveying, engineering and architectural world (and indeed, the heritage world – with Historic Royal Palaces winning the Building Conservation category for the Tower of London).

Representatives from National Trust, Cowper Griffith, Crofton and Durtnells receive the RICS Award  

The stable yard was short listed in three categories – Design and Innovation, Building Conservation and Community Benefit.  The judges said that the project scored extremely well across all three – which is unusual.

The Design and Innovation award recognises the use of outstanding design and innovation in creating a successful project. The judges looked for evidence of creativity and innovation in the design across a wide range of criteria from impact on the local area to how well innovative technology and construction methods have been used.

Our project design team, which includes architects Cowper Griffith, structural engineers Crofton, mechanical & electrical engineers Ridge and main contractors Durtnells, are all extremely proud of the award.

Barry Woodman (FRICS), Chairman of the London Region Judges said: “The design of the works (at Morden Hall Park) has sustainability at its heart, and many tried and tested as well as experimental technologies have been incorporated into the buildings. This ‘test-bed’ approach is innovative, and should enable the National Trust to introduce sustainable measures sensitively in other historic properties.”

The stable yard has also been awarded "runner-up" in the Sustainable City Awards and is due to win a Green Apple Award in June - we can really call it an "award-winning stable yard" now!

Digging up the past

Works continue on the site of our new turbine behind the historic Snuff Mill. An archaeological watching brief has been undertaken, with Dave Saxby from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) braving the torrential rain to make some interesting discoveries.

Dave Saxby from MOLA and the Mackleys contractors on a very muddy site (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

The most exciting moment was when an 18th-century brick wall for the head-race of the east mill was uncovered. It is likely to date to the 1750s when Peter Davenport and Nathaniel Polhill erected the Snuff Mill on the site.

The wall measured 1.50m in height and was placed upon a raft of timber to stop it sinking into the natural sand and gravel. Projecting from the head-race wall were two parallel walls forming a small 18th-century building, possibly a cart shed. The head-race wall had been rebuilt in the 19th century when the west mill was constructed around 1830.

The 18th century brick wall behind the Snuff Mill (MOLA)

A few sherds of pottery were also recovered, probably the refuse of the occupiers of the mill in the 19th century:

Sherds of pottery (and a bone!) found at the turbine site (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

To find out more about Museum of London Archaeology and their work at Morden Hall Park, see:

https://www.facebook.com/MOLArchaeology

London's first Archimedes Screw comes to Morden!

Work has finally begun this week on the long-awaited installation of our Archimedes Screw hydro electric turbine. The turbine is being installed in the River Wandle which flows through Morden Hall Park, and will contribute a huge amount to the park's energy needs - on top of the three different sorts of solar panels, air source heat pump and wood burning stove which are already generating energy in the newly renovated stable yard.

The Archimedes Screw will be installed behind the Grade II listed Snuff Mill and the original waterwheel which was conserved last year. The turbine will act as a modern waterwheel, harnessing the power of the river to generate electricity. It is estimated that it will generate 59,000 kWh a year – about 12 times as much electricity as an average household uses.

The Archimedes Screw turbine is being installed by Mackley Construction and Hallidays Hydropower. Mackleys have been setting up their site this week, moving their mobile office in and already starting to dig. BT and Southern Gas have also been here, diverting any essential cables and pipes that crossed the site, before digging began. Dave, Mackleys Site Manager, sets up the site in a nice safe way (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

A few visitors wondered where their regular picnic site had gone, but were happy to discover that our kind gardening volunteers had moved the tables just round the corner into the new orchard. Paul and his team go for a walk with the picnic tables (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

And the project team were happy to get their hard hats on again, after having to put them away for 6 months.

Caroline happy to be back in her hard hat (NTPL/Zoë Adams)

The Archimedes Screw turbine is being funded by City Bridge Trust and Thames Water, as well as the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). It is expected to be generating energy in September 2012 - watch this space for further developments over the summer.

Six weeks of inspiration!

Sorry we've been quiet lately - it's not that nothing's happening, it's that too much is happening! Here are a few highlights from recent weeks, when we've been getting inspiration from other places, as well as giving it to others here at Morden Hall Park.

Zoë C and Caroline braved the snow to meet the Livinggreen Project partners in Paris, managing a quick visit to another beautiful renovated building (almost as beautiful as our stable yard) whilst there - the Musee d'Orsay in an old railway station: Musee d'Orsay, Paris (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

Caroline then went off on holiday to Costa Rica and amused fellow travellers by taking photos of all the recycling bins - they have some very fine specimens there, like this one which doubles up as a bus stop: Recycling bins in Costa Rica (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

Zoë A meanwhile was getting her own inspiration having been invited to try out the new "Warner Brothers Studio Tour - the Making of Harry Potter":

Back in the real world of Morden we marked Climate Week (12-16 March) by hosting a focus group run by Sustainable Merton and the London Sustainability Exchange as part of their "Energise Merton" project - a group of local residents were taken on an inspirational tour of the stable yard then asked their views on what would encourage them to make energy-saving changes to their homes:

Tom Walsh, Coordinator of Sustainable Merton, leading a tour of the stable yard (NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst)

Then last week we were off to our stand at Ecobuild, the world's biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment - in the ExCeL Centre in the Docklands. We spoke to over 600 people during the 3-day event and people seemed excited to learn about the inspirational centre created by the National Trust here in Morden.


Vera from Delft University (one of our Livinggreen Project Partners) visits the National Trust stand (NTPL/Ting Plaskett)

We hope you'll come and visit the stable yard for some inspiration soon!

We are lucky to have a fantastic team of volunteers in our Livinggreen Centre and without them we wouldn't be able to keep the exhibition open every day or answer the many questions from our visitors. Recently, however, some of our volunteers have been inspired to recycle creatively and have introduced some new additions to our exhibition.
Julie took an unused pallet from Morden Hall Park and made this beautiful chair. As comfortable to sit on as it is lovely, it really does highlight how easy it can be to transform something unwanted into a lovely piece of furniture.
One of the most popular parts of our exhibition is the wood burning stove, and visitors love having the opportunity to sit by the fire in our recycled cable drum rocking chairs. Adding an extra cosiness to the chairs are some gorgeous knitted rugs, courtesy of our volunteer Eileen. If you're a knitter, you'll know that you end up with bits of leftover yarn and this is a fantastic way of making use of all that wool.

We challenge our readers to get creative with their recycling - we look forward to seeing what you can come up with!

Remember you're a Womble...

Our more grown up readers remember the Wombles, those furry, brown creatures who lived on Wimbledon Common and had a rather helpful recycling habit.

This weekend we were lucky enough to have a real Womble visit the Livinggreen Centre - something of a special occasion for us here at Morden Hall Park.

Eagle eyed readers will notice that this is no ordinary Womble, this is in fact Haydon the Womble, the mascot of AFC Wimbledon. Haydon made a special trip to the park to celebrate the launch of the new exhibition in our centre which showcases some of the fantastic community art work that AFCW do with local schools and other groups.

The new exhibition is called 'Flying the Flag for Haydon' and will be on display from Sunday 15th January until Friday 10th February. It features photos, drawings and some fantastic flags, like this one, which have been produced by local schools.

Photos (c) NTPL / Zoë Adams