COPY.
20745
Messrs Aston Webb & E. Ingress Bell to Crown Agents.
Rec'd 24 SEP 17
19 Queen Anne's Gate,
Westminster, S.W.
September 15th 1897.
Hong Kong
Plans for Government Buildings
Regn 26412
Gentlemen,
112
Having carefully considered the matter and after two interviews with Mr Gale we beg to report as follows:-
We are of opinion that the best method of providing a secure foundation for the buildings is by piling with hard wood piles as proposed. But we would urge that instead of grouping the piles under each column they should be placed at equal distances along the frontage, that their heads should be connected by a grillage in the usual way and that the Portland cement concrete laid thereon should be continuous. By this construction, there would be less likelihood of a dislocation of the entablatures of the colonnade, by the subsidence of any individual point of support.
With reference to the question of cost, we are of opinion that a less costly style of building cannot properly be adopted considering the uses and importance of the buildings. Granite is the local and indeed almost the only available material and as the cost of granite, worked and set, is in Hong Kong only the price of Bath stone in England, we do not think its use, for the proposed Government buildings, in any way extravagant.
We may as well say here, that we have had a careful detailed estimate prepared and priced in accordance with the Government schedule in local use, and although the cost appears an astonishingly low one, for buildings of this character, our enquiries have all tended to confirm the official estimate.
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With