Client: The North of England Open Air Museum
Location: Beamish, County Durham
Contract Value: £833,770
Contract Period: February 2008 – October 2008
The works involved the construction of a new replica lamp building for the Colliery which sits in a 300 acre site in County Durham and recreates mining conditions as they were before the start of the First World War. The new building is divided into three areas; traditional spaces where costumed staff will re-enact the miner’s story, the exhibition area and the staff area and public toilets. While re-creating an old building the project incorporated some very modern sustainable features. These included ground source heat pumps servicing under floor heating and drainage led into a septic tank and thereafter into a reed bed.
The building was constructed using traditional methods which meant the team was denied the use of cranes on the site to lift the timber trusses. Hence vital supports had to be designed with this in mind and the king post truss which is at the centre of the building’s frame had to be assembled piece by piece, like a jigsaw, on site.
Although new the building had to appear 100 years old and so the challenge was to build in a distressed look from the beginning. The bricks were a combination of salvaged glazed bricks from a store on site and an Old Victorian Pressed brick. The mortar was a particular challenge and took several sample mixes to achieve the finish required by the architect and the museum curator. The solution was finally arrived at when the Project Manager added some coal dust from the colliery into the mix. An old arcade was also salvaged and incorporated into the scheme and we also sourced cast iron windows which, although new, accurately reflected the style of the time.
On view, in the completed exhibition area, are some of the museum’s important collection of miners’ lamps alongside displays of rescue equipment and mining tools dating from the mid 18th century up to the late 20th century. The Lamp Room is furnished just as it would have been in 1913 and here visitors will see how the lamps were cleaned, maintained and lit.
