Buckland’s part in St Paul’s Cathedral 2M Covid Memorial

In 2021, more than £2.3million was raised in a matter of weeks in a Remember Me campaign by the Daily Mail. The campaign raised funds to create a multi-faceted memorial – a commemorative portico in the heart of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

So where did Buckland come in?

The entrance hall space, or gateway to this special remembrance space in the North Transept was designed to honour those of all faiths and none. It was created as a place where everyone could pay their respects, light a candle, or bring up the details of a loved one, on the special screens which displays the ever-growing online Book of Remembrance, via the Remember Me database.

We were approached early in the project by Morton Partnership structural engineers for help with the structural design of glulam elements for this unusually shaped glulam structure. Our specialist knowledge of glulam manufacture and joint design allowed us to help adjust the scheme and take it through to fabrication drawings, and eventually went on to install the structure for Sir Robert McAlpine.

The glulam structure, which included unusually tight radius curves and large section sizes, was made in house and then installed on site in St Paul’s. Due to the location we had to be very quiet during the installation process.

To work around this we started each day very early – our graduate engineer Flynn had the pleasure of nearly a month working in the Cathedral to get the structure complete starting work at 4.30am which he eventually got used to – along with the repeated organ tuning sessions!

Keith, Flynn and Robin attended the private finishing celebration in the Cathedral back in May, and are delighted to see it finally open to the public.

Carefully offloading curved glulam beams into St Paul’s Cathedral with a hiab lorry in the early hours  

Wheeling curved glulam beams through the Nave of the Cathedral to the installation site in the North Transept.