2nd phase of water works starts at Churchill’s birthplace

The first dredge in 100 years of the Queen Pool lake on the royal Blenheim Estate in Oxfordshire, England will be carried out by Land & Water, the UK marine civils contractor.

The work, which will take around nine months, will remove 300,000 m³ of silt – enough to fill the England football team’s national stadium, Wembley, to the brim – from the lake at Blenheim Palace, where Winston Churchill was born. It is now home to the 12th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough.

“The dredge is one of the most ambitious civil engineering projects undertaken here at Blenheim over the last 300 years,” said Roy Cox, Blenheim Estate’s director. ”It is vitally important to help ensure the long-term health of the lakes, surrounding waterways and parkland and the rich biodiversity that it supports as well as mitigating the risk of environmental damage.”

This is the second phase of a major restoration project by Land & Water at Blenheim Estate, where in summer 2020, essential works were carried out to the Grand Cascade Apron, which feeds the lakes from the River Glyme. 

Land & Water created a resin injection curtain wall in the largest such work to be done in the UK. A new concrete apron and stone-faced walls were built to minimise further wash over the length and breadth of the walls, ensuring the safety of the lake, which was designed by the famous landscape architect Lancelot Brown – better known as Capability Brown – in around 1763.

Engineering around the animals

Land & Water has been contracted to provide engineering works for another Capability Brown landscape at a pond at Longleat House in Wiltshire, which is home to a colony of sea lions and a hippopotamus.

Part of a £2million project, 550 metres of engineering is needed to strengthen a dam to ensure it can withhold 110,480 tonnes of water. Protecting the animals adds a little bit more challenge to the work. Watch here.

Fiona Moore, Divisional Business Manager at Land & Water, said: “This is an incredibly unique project for the Land & Water team to be working on. Never have we found ourselves needing to factor in the welfare of sea lions or hippos during any of our works.”