Facelift for historical buildings

Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Services, the highways management and maintenance business of Balfour, lit up some of Gloucester’s most historic buildings for a night as part of its contract with Gloucester City Council to devise a lighting strategy for the city.

Sodium lamps at the cathedral were replaced with white metal halide lamps, supplied by Eye lighting, to bring out the building’s true colour and provide a good contrast to the lit interior. Arches within the grounds were lit with buried uplighters.

At the back of the cathedral, a statue of Bishop Hooper that was already part of the cathedral environment was relit using red LED floodlights, which are more responsive and advanced than standard floodlights. Bishop Hooper, a Cistercian monk, was burned to death in Gloucester in 1455 following imprisonment and trial for heresy, so red lighting was used as a special effect.

The Guildhall is a key council building and to underline its importance the trial used close offset lighting to highlight its impressive facade. This involves the use of small lamps very close to the subject they are lighting, as opposed to big floodlights which can ‘wash out’ the details in the front of a building.

Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Service’s, Lighting Design Manager, Nigel Parry said:

“The City Council is keen to progress the results of the strategy we are working on and these early trials were a great success to mark the commencement of the relighting of the city centre.”

The council is currently looking into installing these lighting designs permanently.