Hotel: Hamilton 'making light work' at The Old Bridge Inn and Coffee House

The Project: Smart lighting control within the restaurant and public areas of several of the properties of the forward thinking Bulldog Hotel Group became a priority. Hospitality expertise within the group identified the fact that inappropriate lighting levels at particular times of the day and evening led to lack of ambience. It became apparent that effective handling of lighting levels were key to maintaining a conducive and relaxed atmosphere within the dining and bar areas. Asking staff to manually adjust lighting at set times of the day and evening - when busy and under pressure doing what they do best, serving delicious food and drink - proved challenging.

This led to the company setting its sights on identifying an automated solution to ensure ambience was optimised at all times and decided to begin by researching the lighting options for one of its flagship properties - The historic Old Bridge Inn and Coffee House, Market Walk in Holmfirth. Famed for the warmth of its traditional Yorkshire hospitality, the Old Bridge sits imposingly by the side of the River Holme with the famous Pennine Way cutting across the adjoining heather-covered moors. The Hotel is promoted as a venue for a relaxing break, business meetings and conferences. Holmfirth is renowned as the location for the hugely popular television series 'Last of the Summer Wine' and over the years the Hotel has been delighted to entertain famous members of the cast and production team as guests.

The Brief: To provide a simple automated lighting scene system for the restaurant and bar within the Old Bridge Inn. One, which once set, requires no adjustment or maintenance but equally can be reset to accommodate different events within the restaurant and bar, changing levels of natural light during the different seasons of the year.

The Solution: The Bulldog Hotel Group approached Electrical Wholesaler, CEF Boston who recommended Hamilton Litestat to provide a bespoke solution. Hamilton’s bespoke design and manufacturing team, was briefed to create a purpose-built smart lighting control system with a facility for multiple scene setting throughout the Old Bridge’s Restaurant and bar. The system developed by Hamilton comprised a compact twin channel controller with MCB protection and a built-in timer to deliver multiple ‘timed’ scene recall – from breakfast through to evening dining. Essentially the timer sends a pulse to the dimmer processor. This triggers a scene recall at the manager’s chosen time of day. Further pulses from the timer causes the scene to skip to the next stored scene. Notably, changing from one scene to the next is set over a chosen fade rate to give a very gradual almost unnoticed change/effect. The system was designed to be completely automatic – so once set there is no need for staff involvement. A push-button control plate finished in satin steel has been installed in the manager’s office so that stored scenes and times can be changed for one-off events. A secondary manual over-ride and scene skip plate was also incorporated into the base control unit.

The Result: The objective of creating a relaxing dining environment using optimum lighting levels at different times of the day and evening has been met with ease. The client is particularly impressed by the flexibility and capabilities of the system, which by far exceeded expectations. Any management issues around instructing staff to manage the lighting control within the restaurant have been totally eliminated. By taking control of lighting levels the Hotel is also benefiting from energy savings and significant cost reductions. For the client, time is being saved, hassle eliminated and an ideal dining environment created on a daily basis.

Mark Porcher from The Bulldog Hotel Group says: “We were impressed by the speed and efficiency with which Hamilton met our brief. Our initial research into identifying a suitable lighting control unit for the Old Bridge Inn revealed an off the shelf system that would meet our needs simply didn’t exist. Initial frustration led to delight when we discovered Hamilton’s Bespoke Design and Manufacturing Service, Savile Row, at the recommendation of CEF Boston. We are now in the process of rolling out Hamilton’s lighting control unit throughout our Group.”