Roof beams for Westminster Lodge

The massive wooden beams that will hold up the roof of the new Westminster Lodge Leisure Centre were installed earlier this week, in what is a landmark stage for the leisure centre development.

The Glulam beams were shipped over from Denmark where they took eight weeks to design and fourteen weeks to manufacture.  The five main beams are each over 35m long and will support the roof structure over the main pool.

To get the main beams to St Albans, a Police and highways escort was required from Harwich port.  Signage and railings had to be temporarily removed from a traffic island on Holywell Hill to enable the extended delivery trailers access to the Westminster Lodge construction site.

A 200 tonne crane was used to complete the installation of the beams. A crane of this size cannot travel as one unit and had to be constructed on site before the beams could be lifted onto site.