Olympic Park, Stratford
BAM Nuttall, one of the main Olympic Park contractors, was given the task of restoring the walls of the River Lee and improving the appearance of one of the main lock locations near to the Olympic Stadium.
The river runs from Hertford to the Thames via Luton, Ware, Broxbourne, Enfield Lock and Tottenham, amongst others, and meanders its way through part of the Olympic Park construction site.
The river’s walls were originally constructed with Kentish Ragstone and BAM Nuttall’s contract required them to source suitable materials for the restoration work. As Gallagher is the only company still actively quarrying Kentish Ragstone, we were approached by BAM Nuttall to see if we would be able to help them with this project. We were more than willing to assist in any way we could and following a visit to site, established the requirement for cut and dressed blocks and coping stones to match the existing construction. Suitably sized rocks were then selected from our Hermitage Quarry near Maidstone. Gallagher then worked with a local stone mason who had longstanding experience of using ragstone as a building medium. After cutting and dressing at the stonemason’s yard, the blocks were delivered to the site where stonemasons were able to use them to restore the river walls and locks so that the repairs blended in perfectly with the existing Kentish Ragstone river walls.