Cathedral Church of St Peter, Exeter

Cathedral Church of St Peter, Exeter, Cathedral East End Reordering

The Chapter developed a Masterplan for the Cathedral and its Precinct. This Masterplan addresses all the change and development necessary to support the Cathedral. The current phase of the Master plan is known collectively as ‘The 2025 Vision’, of which this project is part of, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Works to the East End Project included: New sound and lighting installed. Removal of the concrete vault ceiling and construction of new public WC facilities. Careful lifting of the stone ledger stone to the quire aisles & relayed to original locations. Installed a new heating system to the quire aisles. Repairs made to the south aisle and south clerestory. Adapted the roof to accommodate the new works. Removed the vault walls including the vault door by crane. Reordered the storage and flower arrangement areas. Constructed a new amenity area in the existing cathedral shop. Removed redundant heating system to the clerestory and cleaned the ferramenta. Works to St James’ Chapel included the installation of a data centre, new joinery, conservation works, decoration and finishes

Services

Clients

The previous lighting within the Cathedral comprised of what was the third generation of electric pendants, supplemented with spotlights and floodlights. The last set of pendants were conceived to combine both lighting and audio systems; with three simple downlights on the perimeter of a disc, in the centre of which was a loudspeaker. The brief was to; resolve the issue of a number of failed and obsolete lighting fittings, improve reading light, noting that shadows are important in ambience. Improve lighting to quire and chapels, provide subtle highlight to selected statues, monuments and icons. Provide more light in the entrance and welcome areas, provide additional lighting for concerts, making sure that controls are easy to operate by all potential users.

The Cathedral at Exeter had an audio system that was designed in the late 1980s and installed in 1990, delivering audio to loudspeaker zones in the Nave, Quire and Aisles. This system generally used a suspended loudspeaker at high level, aimed towards the floor, and suspended in rows along one side of the column lines, spaced at one loudspeaker per structural bay. The Cathedral wished to improve this system, decommissioning the overhead loudspeakers, improving speech intelligibility and coverage. It had to be user friendly, space saving, aesthetically pleasing with extended coverage into other parts of the Cathedral.

We lifted the stone ledgers to the quire aisles & relaid to original locations, to excavate trenches for new heating to the quire area as well as running new services through the cathedral, with archaeological presence. This was done within ‘Bubbles’ to prevent the large amounts of dust produced from getting into the organ blower pipes.

Removal of the vault walls, including the vault door by crane, to open the area and enable us to install new public WC facilities.

Adaptations to the roof were made to accommodate the new works. Replacing an asphalt roof and the supporting structures with new a steel structure and sandcast leadwork.

 

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