Alton Towers

What is the dung heap?

The dung heap is part of a new interactive children’s adventure maze attraction being built for this season at Alton Towers.

This section of the attraction will house the entrance to the attraction and has been construct to resemble animal droppings. The main attraction of the project is an interactive top projected experience.

Inside the dung heap there will be interactive digitally projection of leaves on to the floor which when the children kick their way through the leaves the hidden bugs that now appear, will, when they are approached scatter by running away up the walls. All this specialist high spec technology needed to be protected against the English weather therefore water proofing was an essential part of the specification.

The design of the new attraction by the tussaud's studios resulted in there being no straight lines or surfaces to apply any traditional method of waterproofing. The structure is based on a steel frame erected to form the basic shape and then covered with expamet building products ‘s metal hy-rib lathe. The expanded metal was then sprayed inside and out to a thickness of around 100 mm with Natural Cement Distribution’s Shotcrete 513.

The layer of natural cement based Shotcrete 513 is water proof without the need of additives or additional coatings therefore allowing the dung heap its unique form. The application of the metal lathe & spraying of the Shotcrete was carried out by Mr. John Aveling chairman of the sprayed concrete association. A permanent penetrating concrete surface colouring solution called hatcrete tekstain supplied by roy hatfield ltd.- was applied to the surface of the finished spayed concrete to ensure that the finished structure resembles a pile of dung.