Historic church embraces LED technology

The church of St Mary the Virgin stands immediately beside the beautiful Tudor mansion house of Layer Marney Tower in Essex. The church as we see it today was built at the same time as the house, around 1523, and using the same red-brick – possibly made locally.

Though the majority of the church is early 16th century, it incorporates fragments of an earlier 14th-century collegiate church; William de Marney founded a chantry chapel here in 1330, with provision for two priests under a warden. The current building consists of a nave and chancel, west tower, south porch and a north aisle with a chantry chapel and priest’s lodging.

Clarity was invited to tender to provide the ambient lighting for the entire church and were awarded the project on the back of an innovative, flexible design utilising Cygnus LED luminaires from the GDS Focus Series. These modern and discreet luminaires reduce energy costs and are maintenance free with no lamps to replace. Programmable zoning control allows the light levels in various areas of the church to be independently controlled by a sleek 8” wall-mounted touch panel (or via a phone application) utilising Expert Control from Pharos.

Cabling was carefully and creatively installed to be as unobtrusive as possible. Careful planning and detailed cable layout drawings were an important part of the pre-installation process to ensure this important Grade 1-listed building did not suffer as a part of this enhancement.

One of the most interesting features of St Mary’s is a large mural of St Christopher painted on the north wall. This wall painting almost certainly predates the early 16th-century rebuilding of the church and probably dates to the late 15th century. Independently controlled spots, customised to include ‘barn-door’ shutters to shape the light, were used to pick out and highlight the mural. A similar technique was used to illuminate the high-level cross on the rood screen.

Other features that the new lighting fixtures are now illuminating include the three Marney tombs in the Marney Chapel, the altar, the reredos and the bell tower. Clarity also used LED strip to provide illumination for readers in the pulpit. This was mounted in the permanent wooden canopy above and incorporated in the overall building control.

Simon Bull, director of Clarity, said: “Our engineers worked closely with church representatives to create a range of ‘scenes’ that can be recalled and adjusted at the press of a button. This means anyone can easily operate the system to create excellent lighting in the church. The most common lighting scenarios required for worship, tourist visitors and private functions are now programmed in and can be adjusted for evolving use of the space. An all-off/all-on switch was also provided for team members to use on functional visits.”

To complete the project Clarity provided commissioning, programming and staff training – and they are on the end of a telephone if there are ever any questions.

• For further information visit clarityslv.com