Stabilising a Historic Masonry Wall at St Oswald’s Churchyard, Malpas

This scheme was designed to stabilise
an existing historic masonry retaining wall surrounding St Oswald’s Churchyard in Malpas, a redundant burial ground. Part of the wall had collapsed without warning, revealing a slender masonry construction, retaining up to 3m of ground.

The Solution

The proposal suggested was to use an Ischebeck Titan solution that was designed to EC7 and installed to EN 14199. Ramboll, the designing consultants opted for this tension micropile system as it provided
low deformation, 120-year design life, and could be installed in a narrow pathway
from ground level without dismantling and rebuilding the listed wall.

125nr, 30/16 tension micropiles with 75mm carbide Y cross drill bit were installed, typically to a depth of 7m over a period of four weeks.

Due the nature of the site being a graveyard, it was not possible to carry out any ground investigation. The design was based on conservative assumed

parameters, so preliminary trial test piles were utilised to verify skin friction values. Test results were all well within the specified parameters