New Great Hall Windows

Great Hall window installation progress 15th February 2024

 
We have now installed two out of the eight new Great Hall windows. On the north exterior wall there are five tall window openings. Today and the yesterday, we reinstated the windows in the extreme right-hand opening and the extreme left-hand opening, as you can see in the photo above. Considerable natural light is once more entering the Great Hall, and it is a good feeling.

The central three openings will be glazed the week after next, as my builder Gregor will be in Sheffield next week. These are still boarded over in oriented strand board (OSB), though some years ago we created a small glazed opening at the bottom left just to let a little light into the room.

Much more light will be let in when we install the three new windows in the exterior wall facing east, but we are taking things a step at a time.

The original windows were sash windows, with a 1/3 sash at the top and a 2/3 sash at the bottom. However, these replacements which are notionally temporary are fixed panes of 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, but we have copied the design of the original windows closely, so they look more or less the same from the inside and the outside.

We matched the exterior window colour closely ("Peat" in British Standard 4800) and the interior window colour closely as well ("Mexican Tan" in British Standard 4800). The Mexican Tan appeared alarmingly bright when we first painted it on, but applying a "wet finger" to surviving areas of paint showed we were actually on track. Over time, the existing paint job has dulled due to light and weather exposure, though in sheltered corners the original paint is much brighter. 

In fact, the original interior paint job is oak graining made up of two shades of brown, and the "Mexican Tan" matches the composite effect from a distance. To my eyes, there is yet a third shade of brown used in the Great Hall, which is a plain almost gold colour. This is used on stone and plasterwork, but as we are just dealing with the windows for now I have managed to avoid panicking about matching the gold. :-)

As I was gazing at the Great Hall today, my mind drifted and the stages of the scaffolding along the walls became the galleries of a galleried coaching inn or the galleries of the Globe Theatre, and I could envisage a performance taking place within the room. The space coming alive like this was a thrilling prospect. Will this ever happen? :-)