The Wolfson Tree Management Centre: an update

Work is currently underway on what will become the new Wolfson Tree Management Centre. The new facility will provide all that Westonbirt’s expert tree team needs to manage the tree collection.

The steel brackets and plates have finally arrived for the machinery store! We’ve been waiting for a while so it’s great to see it here! Now that it is here the contractors are fixing the plates into position they can bolt the frame together.

Steel bolts, brackets and plates have been used in this building due to the scale of the timber being used. The joints and loading positions will be under a large amount of pressure so the engineers specified steel rather than timber fixings.

Now the steel is here the contractors will complete the final preparations to the timber frame. The contractors will be using a crane to lift the large sections of timber frame into position, which will be here in the last two weeks of September. Please come and have a look from Circular Drive in the Old Arboretum, it should be an impressive watch!

The timber cladding is also now complete and ready to be lifted into position when the frame is up and the crane arrives. In order to create a random appearance the contractors have setup a lottery system based on the different sizes of timber and the width of the panels! As the panels have been fabricated in panels we are hoping that the building will look almost complete by mid-October, including the frame, cladding and roof!