British heritage marks an important part of our history
With many buildings and landscapes incorporating special architectural features, making them of national importance, it is important, especially to us at Terraqua Environmental Solutions (TES), that we safeguard the future of Grade Listed structures for years to come.
Most recently at TES, we have just completed improvement and dredging works to the lake at Great Tangley Manor in Guildford. This is a Grade I listed hotel dating back to over 1,000 years ago where it was thought to be a royal hunting lodge.
After rehoming fish from within the lake, specialist machinery was used to dredge the silt on the bed of the lake, as well as the inlet stream, to increase waterflow and enhance the functionality of the lake for years to come.
To create attractive habitats for the local flora and fauna we re-installed the property’s existing duck house and protected water lilies. Oak mooring posts were also knocked in for the client’s boat as a natural, stunning aesthetic.
Most impressively, we carried out this project during the biggest snowfall Surrey has seen since 2013 and we have lots of picturesque images to prove it.
It’s a real honour for TES to be part of preserving waterways at some of UK’s most historic estates.
In 2019, we worked on behalf of the BBC to identify and solve the leak that had arisen at the ancient lake at Grade II listed Caversham Park in Reading, which was used in WW2 to monitor Nazi broadcasting.
The lake is thought to date back to at least the mid 1700’s as it’s understood to have been “tinkered with” by well-known landscape architect Capability Brown.
After inspection, we found that the leak had been caused by an existing outlet pipe being disconnected and blocked, we also unearthed an existing manhole which was part of the irrigation system for the property’s historic market garden. We therefore gathered a semi-circle of 4m sheet piles from the dam crest around the manhole to seal it and filled the cover with clay to prevent the leak from arising again.
We are pleased to say that this glorious archaic lake, and the other historic landscapes we have had the pleasure of enhancing, survives to tell more tales for generations to come.