The Church of St. Peter Mancroft has stood proudly in the heart of Norwich for nearly 600 years. An important heritage site, the church’s lighting needed an upgrade to highlight its beautiful architecture and achieve the client’s brief. Within a Grade I listed mediaeval building, this required a high level of sensitivity.
The aims of the project were to enhance worship, improve eco credentials and elevate aesthetics and safety. Lighting designers Enlightened Lighting of Bristol specified Pharos Architectural Controls to fulfil the control elements of the new lighting scheme they designed, installed and commissioned.
The wider project team included the church architect Nicholas Jackson, and Systems Integrator Experience Lighting who undertook the Pharos programming in situ.
A comprehensive LED lighting scheme replaced the existing outdated and inefficient sodium-based light sources. 355 new and fully dimmable fixtures were installed – all with individual control using a Pharos Designer lighting control system.
Building scenes to support the different uses within the church was an essential part of the lighting design, and the Designer system fulfilled the brief perfectly, enabling pre-programmed scenes to be recalled whenever needed. Enlightened collaborated closely with the client to understand the needs of the church and proceeded to design lighting scenes that would not only fulfil their requirements, but introduce the additional wow-factor that brings this spectacular house of worship to life.
The Enlightened team were able to show how the lighting could be used by non-technical personnel to enhance worship and change the mood at any given time. The liturgical focus is usually east towards the high altar, and the outstanding golden reredos at the east end of the church really sang when bathed in clear, clean and warm white light.
The positioning of the fixtures was a major consideration, both in terms of lighting design and to cause minimal impact upon the fabric of the building. Enlightened positioned most of the high-level lighting for the nave inside the clerestory window reveals, mounting multiple sources on custom-made plates to minimise the fixings required. This achieved the correct angles – to both illuminate the body of the church and to uplight the spectacular hammerbeam roof and ceiling bosses. It was imperative to correctly illuminate the choir and sanctuary, both for worship and for the many concerts that take place.
The ability to recall pre-programmed lighting scenes via the Designer TPC (Touch Panel Controller) touchscreen and three Designer BPS (Button Panel Station) interfaces positioned around the building provided user-friendly control to even the most non-technical of people at the church. Mobile access to scene recall was also made possible on a tablet within the building, using a custom web interface hosted by the TPC.
The entire Pharos Designer system, installed to create the desired lighting control effects, comprised the TPC and BPS interfaces, plus a Designer RIO 44 (Remote Input Output 44) device; all connected with Designer PoE (Power over Ethernet) network switches. The new lighting is expected to reduce electricity consumption of the church’s lighting by around 80%.
