Ledston Hall, West Yorkshire

INSULEAD® FIXED UNITS · STEELYTE® OPENING CASEMENTS · APPLIED SQUARE LEADING

The Building

Ledston Hall, located on the outskirts of Leeds, dates back to the 11th Century and was originally built as a Grange and Chapel by the monks of Pontefract Priory. It was the former home of Lady Betty Hastings one of Leeds’ greatest benefactors. This building gained it’s Grade I listed status in 1952 due to its impressive architecture and bold history. However, in recent years the Hall had fallen into disrepair and was on the Heritage at Risk Register.

The Brief

The glazing to the hall included a combination of wooden sliding sash windows, genuine leaded lights and steel opening casements which had been fitted to the parts of the hall that had stone mullions. In 2020 Purcell approached Design Glass to provide a glazing solution for repairing and refurbishing the leaded lights to the hall. However, as leaded lights provide limited thermal efficiency an alternative glazing solution was presented which would be in keeping with the hall.

The Solution

After a number of consultations involving Historic England, Touchstone Glazing, the sister company to Design Glass was invited to install a sample of their patented double-glazing system. Touchstone was to provide a glazing solution which would demonstrate how a new double-glazed window could look virtually identical to the original single glazed leaded lights. After Historic England accepted Touchstones patented double-glazing system manufacturing could begin. A mixture of Touchstones Insulead® and Steelyte® slim glazing system combined with 16mm facetted double glazed units would be used.

The Response

The outcome was a thermal efficient double-glazed solution which Historic England agreed, looked aesthetically in keeping with the original leaded lights of the hall. To retain elements of the historical, however, it was also considered important to refurbish some of the original single glazed windows. Now in 2022 over 200 touchstone windows been carefully installed to the stone mullions following the same specification of the sample window which was approved back in 2020.

In the top left is the sample window that was installed and approved by Historic England. The sample window uses our facetted glass with our applied lead and has a total depth of 16mm. After gaining approval from local conservation production of over 200 windows could begin.