Restoration and reorganisation of listed building
Neville Hall and Wood Memorial Hall together house the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers – founded in 1852. Now more commonly referred to as The Mining Institute, the building is Listed Grade II* – principally by virtue of its magnificent High Victorian Gothic Library Room and Edwardian Lecture Theatre.
The building faces a number of issues in the 21st Century: Maintenance and restoration of the historic building fabric, together with the current inadequacy of building access ar-rangements and services infrastructure are of prime concern.
The Mining Institute is in the process of establishing a new entity ‘The Great North’ to en-sure safeguarding of its collection and the building in which it is housed. A business model developed by The Institute, centres upon comprehensive refurbishment and adaption of Neville Hall to an organisation, which enables all key spaces be fully utilised for a range of public events and catered functions.
Miller Partnership have a long association with the Institute and have worked on many aspects of the buildings ongoing programme of refurbishment. In 2016 the practice undertook design analysis and developed outline proposals in support of the Institute’s application for Stage 1 Project Development Grant from Heritage Lottery Fund. The aim of the analysis was to establish how new access and servicing facilities could be inserted into a tightly contained and highly sensitive historic environment.
The resultant proposal to insert a new five story lift and servicing core within the buildings less sensitive back of house area was developed in with Arup as structural and servicing engineers.
The proposal was successful in securing £4.8 million in Heritage Lottery Funding. The project is currently progressing under rules of European Procurement for HLF funded projects.
