Singing the praises of a Wren church modernised

Singing the praises of a Wren church modernised

History courses through its brickwork – making modernisation technically difficult and aesthetically challenging.

That was how B+H found St James’s Church, Piccadilly. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, prime minister William Pitt the Elder was baptised at its font. The central London church is not just used for services, however. It hosts lunchtime and evening recitals and the decision was taken to share these with larger audiences by filming and streaming. 

Longstanding CRE exhibitor B+H were asked to provide equipment which offered good sound and image quality. It also had to be simple to operate. Andy Felix, project manager at B&H, knew the historic church posed severe problems with cabling and stained-glass windows posing particular problems.

‘Wiring has to be discrete in old buildings,’ he explained. ‘We hid cable under floorboards and followed the architectural lines of the building, minimising visual impact. Wood effect trunking was used to hide cables to the first floor.

‘The stained-glass windows also needed to be taken into account when specifying which cameras to use. There were quite good natural light levels in the building but this could fluctuate and we needed equipment which could cope. The cameras and equipment we installed can start and stop streaming at the touch of a button. Once set up via a PC, they are incredibly simple to operate by the church staff.’

B+H Sound Services was formed in 1978 by Brian Hillson. Nearly 50 years on it remains focused on providing sound, light and AV solutions to the live event industry and has a long history of helping churches get their message across with sensitive use of sound and vision equipment. More recently the company has helped churches with live streaming.

In 2015 the business was acquired by SFL Group enabling it to support a growing number of clients with a team which has risen from two people in a small garage to over 60 skilled operators in two key locations – Peterborough and Reading. The team will be delighted to meet visitors to CRE South West and advise on improving church streaming or sound and vision problems.

• B+H are on stand C20 at CRE South West

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