BSP engineers are providing support for a community project to build a new heritage centre in Leicestershire.
The construction of the Mountsorrel and Rothley Community Heritage Centre has involved the dismantling of an historic barn which is being relocated to the site and rebuilt to form a heritage centre. A tea room/coffee shop is also being created from the old Time Office from Mountsorrel Quarry.
Both are being built by utilising an internal timber frame design with surrounding block walls. The original stones are then built up on the outside. Externally the buildings will look identical to the originals, yet are fully eco friendly to heat and comply with modern building regulations.
Steve Cramp, director for Mountsorrel Heritage Centre, said: “Our community is working together as volunteers to create something that we hope will bring great benefit to local people. We wouldn’t be able to do any of the work we do were it not for the help we receive from businesses and other organisations. BSP Consulting has played a key role in providing the structural information we needed and we are immensely grateful to them for all their help.”
The heritage centre is part of a project to restore the Mountsorrel Railway, which was built at the turn of the 20th Century to deliver stone from the Mountsorrel Quarries to Swithland Sidings on the Great Central Railway.
Alongside the heritage centre, volunteers also hope to recreate three stonemasons’ huts and will showcase the region’s geology and history by organising demonstrations of how granite was dressed by hand over 100 years ago. Mountsorrel Quarry is a granite quarry and a quarry has been in operation on the site for at least 250 years.
The whole site aims to recreate and raise awareness of a once-forgotten industrial landscape, which was crucial to the local Leicestershire community.
The Mountsorrel and Rothley Community Heritage Centre is due for completion late 2015/early 2016.
BSP Consulting structural engineer Chris Laughton said: “Engineers at BSP Consulting are very pleased to be providing civil and structural engineering advice and support to this fascinating community project, which is helping to bring history alive.
“When our contacts at architects Henry Mein Partnership asked us to get involved we were delighted to help out by sharing our expertise.”
For more details about the project visit http://www.mountsorrelrailway.org.uk/
