Merchant Adventurers Hall

To enable the contemporary life of the hall to flourish, a new lighting solution was required

Theory

When the original architects of the Merchant Adventurers Hall in York were working, between 1357 and 1371, interior lighting was a question of how large you could make the windows or how many candles were available.

Today, England’s oldest surviving timber-framed guildhall is a Grade 1 listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument. The hall is used day and night for a wide variety of public and private, business and social functions.

To enable the contemporary life of the hall to flourish, a new lighting solution was required that would be both dramatic and practical, illuminating the ancient oak timbers of the main hall and chambers, while protecting them from damage. The brief was for remote controlled, variable, programmable and energy efficient lighting that would enhance the structure, without looking out of place.

Practice

From January to March 2009, the hall was closed to the public while NG Bailey’s building maintenance team installed nearly 1,500 metres of pyro copper cabling. The solution includes the latest LED lighting, remote controlled spotlights and dimmers, feature lighting and emergency lighting throughout the building.

This is believed to be the first time this type of LED has been deployed on such a scale and in such an old structure, and it required exceptional precision and attention to detail. Over 120 individual connections had to be made and tested in situ.

Installing a new lighting system was always going to be a physical challenge, given the aged fabric of the building. Bowing walls and uneven floors made access tricky. With no suspended ceilings to conceal the cabling, every wire and light fitting had to be exactly positioned and discretely installed along the top of the beams.

With the lighting project successfully underway, NG Bailey also won the contract to install new boilers and rewire the plant room.

"NG Bailey clearly understood the implications of working in a historic environment such as ours and carried out the work to a very high standard with great care and respect for the fabric of the building."
James Finlay
Clerk to the Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York