The Alnwick Garden is a public attraction founded by the Duchess of Northumberland and the new LED lighting is the first phase of Sparkle, a new permanent lighting installation conceived by the Duchess herself. The £100,000 project completed by Marl is specifically designed to focus on the central area of the garden, the Hornbeam Arbours and the Grand Cascade, which are the most prominent features when visitors first enter the garden. There is also lighting all the way up the central part of the garden from the steps, through to the dramatic archway at the very top of the garden, which can just be seen from the Pavilion area, about 200m away.
The Duchess of Northumberland commented, "Phase one of Sparkle has transformed dark evenings into a stunning spectacle of light and colour. The Alnwick Garden was designed 17 years ago with lighting in mind. When I saw the original drawings I immediately recognised the huge opportunity for a dynamic lighting programme. This is the first phase of a permanent, flexible installation which will bring the garden to life in the evenings and during the winter months. It will be magical at Christmas and the lights can be enjoyed from The Pavilion without needing to go outside."
She continued, "LED was the only viable light source for the illumination needed to interpret my long standing vision for the lighting scheme. Marl LED technology is highly reliable, offers full intelligent control over individual lighting fixtures and is both energy efficient and environmentally friendly when compared with traditional light sources."
Commenting on her decision to appoint Marl, the Duchess added, "Following my visit to Marl in July 2012, I could see that they were an exceptional company. Not every engineering company has a collection of six grand pianos on site! I was impressed by their capability, expertise and approach. The enthusiasm, energy and creativity of its young team was inspiring, and the fact that they are located together on a single site convinced me that they would work together effectively to realise this very complicated project. They have more than fulfilled that promise. On 24th November the system was ready to be switched on, less than five months after that initial visit, and took just six weeks to install."
The Duchess concluded, "I believe that when the lighting programme has been completed, visitors will come to Alnwick to see the lights during the shoulder months which will benefit not just The Alnwick Garden but also the town of Alnwick and other service providers. This first phase is stunning and I have worked closely with the specialists, Marl International, to ensure it matches my expectations."
Adrian Rawlinson, managing director of Marl International, said, "The Duchess of Northumberland visited Marl Business Park in Ulverston in July 2012, and offered us the chance to demonstrate our capability to provide a fully controlled lighting system. Marl can design and manufacture new LED lighting products entirely in-house. Marl has the benefit of over 100 committed, clever and resourceful team players to draw on to get on with the delivery of the project - and it is fair to say that everyone was totally committed to this project from Day One. We were extremely excited to be offered this unique brief to design a dynamic, powerful light scheme, for this exceptional situation."
Marl International supplied and controlled the whole of phase one of the Sparkle installation, excluding the electrical ground work required for the installation. This included over 90 individual light fittings, the hardware cabinets, mains and DMX cabling, IT communications systems, software control, design of the lighting sch
