Restoring The Pavilion - Inside The Dome in Torquay - video Dailymotion

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Torquay’s beloved Britannia is safe and sound – being kept under lock and key at a secret location in the bay.  A statue of Britannia – the iconic female warrior who rules the waves and defends the realm – stood on the very top of the dome of Torquay’s Pavilion for a century before she was taken down.  Britannia looked out over Tor Bay while the building beneath her feet served as a theatre, an ice rink and later an arcade of shops, and campaigners fighting to restore the building feared she may have been lost forever as the Pavilion fell into disrepair.  Now, though, the man in charge of the painstaking Pavilion restoration project has confirmed not only that Britannia still exists, but also that she might one day return to her ‘perch’ on top of the building’s distinctive dome.  In one of six new videos created by Torbay Council, head of engineering Tim Jones reveals: “The fantastic news is that Torbay Council still has Britannia. She’s safe and secure in an undisclosed council location. I’ve been assured she’s under lock and key. Read the full story on the Mid-Devon Advertiser website.

Transcript

00:00Okay, so we're now at the high point of the structure. We're right underneath the dome on the roof of the pavilion.

00:11Really great news in terms of the structural steel work, which is very, very difficult to see,

00:16but essentially you've got a square frame down at that sort of level just beneath those timbers that you can see,

00:23and that supports some curved beams that come up to this sort of apex point of the dome.

00:30So the metalwork, as I say, is in pretty good condition considering it's roughly 113 years old, so that's good news.

00:40In terms of the finishes, obviously we have had a major amount of water ingress,

00:44so there is some serious work to do on the secondary cladding structure both internally and externally,

00:51but that is much more easily dealt with than if we've got a problem with the dome itself.

00:56So at one point we were considering removing the dome. We're not thinking at the moment that should be necessary.

01:02So just sort of looking back over history, I mean, as a lot of you will be aware,

01:07the Britannia statue sat on the top of this dome right from 1912 for roughly 100 years,

01:16and it was finally removed, I believe, about nine years ago.

01:20I think there might have been concern about its instability.

01:24Really fantastic news. Really, really pleased to report that Torbay Council have Britannia.

01:31We've got her safe and secure. She's in an undisclosed council location,

01:36but on good authority, I've been told, she's under lock and key and safe,

01:41and clearly it would be fantastic at some point further down the line

01:44to get her back on top of the dome again.

Restoring The Pavilion - Inside The Dome in Torquay

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