The Granite Men by Jim Fiddes

Author:Jim Fiddes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press

Polished granite columns at the corner entrance to the Saltoun Arms.

Detail of granite work at the Saltoun Arms.

The Royal Insurance Company Headquarters, Liverpool

In 1902 the Liverpool building had been under construction for five years. Huge blocks for this project and the bridge at Kew were being sent by rail and sea at around the same time. Built around a steel frame the Royal Insurance building was the largest granite building contract ever undertaken in Britain, outside of Aberdeen. Over 2,000 tons of granite had been used, with individual blocks being between 9 and 11 tons each when delivered from the quarry to Fyfe’s yard in Aberdeen. The basement and first floor were in granite, 40ft high in all, with 27ft above pavement level, the upper floors being of Welsh freestone. The main frontage was 220ft long, all the granite in the building was fine axed, with a granite staircase leading to the entrance and polished granite in the entrance hall. The doorway was 11ft wide with an arch of rusticated stones supported by two columns on each side, the columns built in two courses with rounded and square projecting stones, the base stones of these arches being the ones that weighed 11 tons when brought from the quarry. The elaborately moulded cornice over the arch was formed of five stones, weighing in total over 40 tons, and projecting 6ft over the building line. The Aberdeen Journal of 31 January 1902 carried illustrations of the highly decorated keystone for the entrance arch, a seven-ton stone, and the inner arch beyond the vestibule. The Journal commented that the stones for the main doorway and other special parts of the building had been completed in a very short time, these stones having been in the quarry only a few months before.

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