Topping Out Ceremony Marks Construction Milestone In Princethorpe's New Science Centre
02 Dec
Pupils, staff and trustees have celebrated an important milestone in the construction of the new £8m state-of-the-art Science Centre at Princethorpe College. Headmaster, Ed Hester, donned a hi-vis jacket and hart hat and scaled the heights of the new building for the traditional topping out ceremony.
Accompanied by the Heads of School, Freya Mills and Pratheesh Prabakaran, Year 7 representatives, Isaac Fowle and Chloe Sarkies, and invited guests, the topping out of the new £8 million Science Centre was celebrated on Wednesday 30 November.
The practise of 'topping out' a new building can be traced to the ancient Scandinavian religious practise of placing a tree on the top of a new building to appease the tree-dwelling spirits of their ancestors who had been displaced (though you will be pleased to know that no trees were removed in the construction of the Science Centre, and we will be extensively landscaping the surrounding area and planting additional trees). The practice migrated to England with Scandinavian invaders.
Invited Princethorpe trustees and teachers as well as the Managing Director of contractor Trendgrey Construction Limited, Nick Henderson, were present at the ceremony joining in with the good humour of the occasion as the tree was decorated. An optional tour of the exciting new development followed the event revealing first-hand the ten new laboratories that will open for business at the start of the next academic year.
Nick Henderson described the progress of the development, “The project at Princethorpe College has been progressing extremely well, and we’re delighted to be at a stage where the ‘topping out’ ceremony can take place. The new building will be state-of-the-art providing a wonderful teaching and learning environment for pupils at the College.”
Ed Hester, said, “We were delighted to celebrate this significant and traditional moment in the construction of our new Science Centre. We are looking forward to its opening next year. The building is looking incredible, and we are all excited by the learning opportunities it will present us.”