Woodhorn Mining Museum

The scheme has been developed by Wansbeck District Council and Northumberland County Council with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and aims to attract more than 75,000 visitors a year. The main contractors were Bovis Lend Lease and the curtain walling was fabricated and installed by AC Yule.

The slender profiles of AC Yule and Technal's curtain walling enclose sheer panes of glass and provide an effective contrast with the gabion cladding - mesh boxes containing stone blocks.

Unusually, the curtain walling was also used to form a full height facetted glazed screen in the centre of the building. This dramatic feature supports timber brise soleil sunshading and separates the public search room that forms part of the county archive facilities, from the museum gallery spaces.

The curtain walling was finished in a grey polyester powder coating and glazed in 6mm clear toughened outer and 6mm clear toughened low-E inner glass. Multi-laminates and UV filtration were used for the glazing to the gallery spaces, where the glass had to achieve a higher specification and security rating to meet Government requirements for visiting exhibitions.

Because of the nature of the displays and archives, the building is highly environmentally conditioned. Electronically controlled casement windows from AC Yule and Technal's FXi65 range were therefore used to provide smoke vents inserted into the curtain walling on the front façade and into rain screen cladding and render on the rear elevation.

Please also see our other Showcase information.