The Wilford Archive
The Great Hall Lighting
In 1978, the lighting in the Great Hall consisted of eight small chandeliers, each with four lamps and several tungsten strip lights mounted on the cornice to the panelling.
It was considered inadequate and not in keeping with the grandeur of the Hall. It is also recorded that the shades to these pendants were apt to catch fire from time to time!
Bridlington architect Francis Johnson was commissioned to advise on improved lighting and recommended that the eight small chandeliers be replaced with three large chandeliers, supplemented by some indirect lighting. Dr Derek Goodwin, a physicist and lighting expert at the University of York, was engaged to advise on the technical lighting aspects and on the indirect lighting so as to provide the required range of lighting levels.
After a great deal of debate and anguish within the Company during 1978/79, it was agreed to install:
• three large chandeliers designed by Francis Johnson, each with 18 lamp holders pointing up, instead of the 15 lamps pointing down as initially envisaged, all controlled by a dimmer switch and
• continuous fluorescent tubes along each long side of the Hall, concealed within the cornice of the panelling, throw light upwards to illuminate the underside of the roof and reflect down into the Hall itself.
Francis Johnson’s design concept for the pendants was ‘to use traditional materials - wood and wrought iron - in traditional shapes, suitably embellished to introduce a note of relief to the prevailing brown-ness of the Hall, as virtually an extension of the heraldry on the east wall’- see his original sketch on the right.
Each chandelier consisted of an upper tier of six wrought iron arms carrying six lamp holders and twelve similar arms in a lower tier, the two tiers carried on a turned decorative wood sleeve, finished with a ‘tassle’ at the bottom which is believed to be simply wedged into a socket, so that if anyone hangs onto it, it would pull out2. The steelwork (£350) was by Russells of Kirkbymoorside, the wood carving and assembly (£1300) was by Dick Reid - the local but internationally known wood carver - with House and Son supplying and installing the concealed lighting (£1200), giving a total cost of £2,900.
It is interesting that the top of the chandeliers mimics two of the features from the Merchant Taylors’ Coat of Arms - the ‘Pavilioners Tent’ shown on the central shield and the pennant carried by the Pascal Lamb.
The cost of one pendant was met by an anonymous Merchant Taylor, a second by an anonymous donor and the third by subscriptions from Members of the Company and a grant from York Civic Trust. There appears to have been no ceremony to mark the installation of the new lighting – just relief that the project had been satisfactorily completed.
In the 1990s, the candle type bulbs were replaced with clear ‘golf ball’ sized bulbs to give a more ‘sparkling’ effect.
Sold!
The Pre 1978/79 Chandeliers
1 see also Plate 4, The Merchant Taylors of York, Dobson & Smith
2 see Plate 7, The Merchant Taylors of York, Dobson & Smith
GAW – 29/10/13
The eight chandeliers which were in use in the Great Hall until 1978/79 were of an intricate fretwork design – see photographs above. In 2013 they were ‘rediscovered’ laying in the roof space above the upstairs Masters room, having laid there undisturbed for 30 years or so. Although they were black they were in fact of solid brass and the set of eight were sold at auction by Dennis Wombell in October 2013 for £750.