City Engineers' Work

The work of Norwich City Council, City Engineering Department.

1) Experimental Sewage Disposal Plant at Whitlingham. A small, specially constructed, experimental sewage treatment works at Whitlingham is shown. The process is explained in detail and the various features demonstrated by an operator. The contrast in the quality of sewerage is shown at the end. An operator holds up tWO test tubes, each containing a sample of water. City Engineers' Work. 2) Skid Tests, Newmarket Road. There are sots taken from a moving car as it proceeds through Eaton to Norwich. The Red Lion Public House is on the right hand side of the picture. The motor car continues towards Norwich. Later shots show the road as one is leaving Norwich. After these shots, the road is watered and skid tests are carried out using an adapted motor cycle and side car, carrying measuring equipment. There are also tests to measure the surface for breaking carried out by a van. 3) Tar Spraying. A road is sprayed with tar and chippings are applied. The surface is flattened by a steam roller. 4) South Park Avenue Housing Site. A caterpillar scraper and other heavy earth moving equipment prepare roads and sewers for a new housing estate in South Earlham. A heavy crane is seen working with a scoop. 5) Re-piling Of The River Wensum. The old concrete pillars are removed and the new ones placed in situ by the use of a heavy weight. There are many pieces of heavy plant in the picture. 6) Colman Road Resurfacing. Gravel asphalt is tipped into the Barber-Greene resurfacing machine. Parts of the machine are demonstrated during the sequence. The sequence concludes with the steamroller rolling the surface. 7) Yare Valley Sewer. There are views of the construction of an underground tunnel and of the ceiling runners being fixed into place. Most of the sequence concentrates on the engineering problems of constructing the sewer so close to the River. Above ground shots show the sewer passing between the river and the Cock public house at Lakenham. There are shots of the steel piles being driven into the ground and of the drag line excavator at work. Concrete is mixed, poured into place and then levelled by hand. The concrete pipes are placed in situ and the joint devised. At one stage there is a close up shot of foot pedals being used to control the crane. 8) Newmarket Road Works. This section shows the concrete being prepared and taken by lorry to the site where it is spread by hand and levelled by machine.

Featured Buildings

The Red Lion Public House, Eaton; The Cock Public House, Lakenham

Keywords

Civil engineering; Housing estates; Norwich City Council; Roads; Sewage disposal; Skid tests

Intertitles

Experimental Sewage Disposal Plant.Experiments are taking place at Whitlingham Sewage Disposal Works to ascertain the suitability of latest practice in disposal, namely alternating double filtration. Dosing of filters is at a much higher rate than normal and sewage is treated twice instead of once. A small experimental works has been built for this purpose.Sewage enters into a gauging chamber where the flow is measured through a V notch.Sewage then flows to a sedimentation tank (an inverted pyramid) which settles out suspended matter, The inlet is central and sewage flows over a weir to outlet.Thence to the bacteria beds first passing through a distributing chamber which enables various changes of treatment to be made.The sewage then passes to bacteria beds via a waterwheel and distributor arms.Close up of media showing insect life.From bacteria beds, sewage flows via a distributing chamber to humus tanks where fine humus sludge is settled out.The semi-purified sewage passes to a sump, thence to pumps which discharge back into the chamber of bacteria beds. It then passes through different beds from the first treatment and undergoes a second bacteria bed and humus tank treatment. The bacteria beds are alternated daily.The purified sewage then passes to the river outfall.Tanks are regularly emptied of sludge to prevent septic action being set up.A noticeable difference in the clarity of the sewage can be seen.The end.At the conclusion of the work tests were made for skidding and breaking properties of the surface. The skidding machine consists of a motor cycle with a 18 degrees out-of-line side wheel which when passed over a previously watered surface has a measurable tendency to skid. In addition a van equipped with special instruments was used to measure the quality of the surface of breaking.Tar Spraying.The Norwich Corporation owns a modern Bristowes 1,000 gallon spraying machine. The spreading of chippings on the sprayed tar compound is facilitated by the use of Hornsey gritting machine attached to a lorry. the chippings are evenly spread by means of gravity through a metal comb.South Park Avenue Housing Site.The construction of roads and sewers was undertaken by direct labour. Road excavation was carried out by means of a caterpillar 'scraper'.Sewer excavation and backfilling was carried out by a Priestman 'cub' excavator.Re-piling of the River Wensum.Owing to erosion it was found necessary to re-pile river banks near new mills sluices.Drawing old concrete piles.Pitching steel pile into position.Capping the pile and driving with free falling monkey.Colman Road Resurfacing.City Engineers' Work.The Ministry of Transport part of Colman Road was widened and resurfaced with gravel asphalt. The work was carried out by contract and the material for resurfacing was laid by a 'Barber-Greene' machine.The lorry delivering the gravel asphalt is discharged directly into the Barber-Greene whilst the machine continues to move and spread.Conveyor belts in the machine moves asphalt to the spreading mechanism.Depth of spread of material is readily controlled by hand.The material is kept hot by an oil burning system which is pointed out by the operator.Rolling of asphalt whilst hot is essential.The surface is constantly checked for correct camber.Yare Valley Sewer.The Yare Valley Sewer was carried out by direct labour. The photographs were taken on the first section, part of which was in tunnel. Excavated material from the working face was trollied along the heading and hauled to the surface by mobile crane.These shots show the method of fixing the ceiling runners.At one point the sewer passed very close to, and between, the Lakenham Cock Public House and the River, and it was deemed advisable to carry out the work between sheet steel piling. A McKiernan Terry hammer was used, steam being supplied by a vertical boiler nearby. The winch on the piling frame was also steam operated.Excavation being carried out after driving of piles.It was decided to use battered trench excavation with a consequent saving of timber. This also enabled a drag line excavator to be used.Mixing transporting and depositing concrete to foundation and haunches of pipes.42 concrete pipes with Cornelius patent joints were used.Tying the hessian to facilitate making of the joint.Fixing the rubber sealing ring.Fixing the sylvester to draw the pipes together.Closing the hessian and making the puddle dam.Pouring the grout for the joint.This film was produced for the Norwich City Council by the City Engineer and is a record of several post-war schemes.Newmarket Road Re-construction.In 1947 the Ministry Of Transport requested the Norwich Corporation to reconstruct 1 1/4 miles of trunk road A.11 within its boundary. The carriageway was 30' wide, having a thickness of 8 singly re-inforced concrete, with transverse expansion joints at 40 - 60' intervals and a longitudinal central construction joint. The work was undertaken by direct labour.Mixing of concrete was by weigh batcher of 20 tons capacity, serviced by a Chaseside 2-ton crane.Concrete was transported to site by lorry and dumpers. An Aveling-Barford finishing machine spread and consolidated the concrete. This machine is essentially a mobile carriage having a reciprocating spreading beam a the front and a heavy vibrating beam at the rear. The machine travels at speeds varying from 2'0 to 10'00 per minute, whilst the rear beam moves at approximately 3,000 vibrations per minute over a 15'0 width of concrete.