We had a brilliant day at the Museum Development North conference at Kiplin Hall and Gardens last week. It was a pleasure to share the stories of our projects for the Welcome Centre at Kiplin, and the Museum of Making at Derby Museums and lessons learnt from both. It was fantastic to hear about the roofing works for the Hall by Donald Insall Associates and the improvements to the visitor facilities at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, rounded off with a thought-provoking visioning workshop led by Purcell.

Find out more about more the welcome centre refurbishment on our project page and more about Kiplin Hall and Gardens on this link: www.kiplinhall.co.uk

We’re thrilled that our 15-year transformational project at Grade I-listed Hull Minster has been recognised with a 2025 RIBA Yorkshire Award! Working alongside an incredible client and collaborators, we’ve helped reimagine England’s largest parish church—a stunning 700-year-old landmark reimagined as a vibrant hub for community, heritage, and culture.

Since the start of the project, annual visitor numbers have soared from 14,000 in 2009 to over 225,000 by 2018, a testament to the Minster’s renewed role at the heart of the city. The three-phase vision, completed in Autumn 2022 with the opening of the Trinity Room, was all about sustainability, accessibility, and re-embedding the church into the life of Hull. From vital repairs to improved environmental performance and a more welcoming public presence, every step was taken to protect this historic space for future generations.

Congratulations to all the other winners and shortlisted teams—it’s inspiring to see so many outstanding projects shaping the future of architecture in our region.

Learn more about the Hull Minister project here: https://baumanlyons.co.uk/projects/hull-minster

We were delighted to celebrate Kiplin Hall’s 400th anniversary recently with the official opening of the new visitor centre. The Grade II Listed building was most recently used as a study centre for the University of Maryland, and historically the site of the Hall’s stable block. The refurbishment opened up dark sub-divided classrooms into a spacious, flexible and calm cafe space with a modern kitchen and servery to enable Kiplin Hall CIO to better cater for their growing visitor numbers. The former workshop which was cold and leaky has been transformed into a welcoming retail area with a contemporary shopfront. The courtyard has been re-paved to provide level access into the building and to create a sunny multi-use outdoor seating area. Other improvements include new windows, insulation, repointing and structural and drainage upgrades to protect and conserve the historic fabric. Further highlights include revealing the historic forge bellows and the beautiful brick clinker floor in the tearoom for visitors to enjoy. Find out more about the refurbishment work on our project page and more about the fantastic activities (and delicious food!) available at Kiplin Hall and Gardens at  www.kiplinhall.co.uk

Bauman Lyons are delighted and privileged to be working with The Landscape Agency, Matthew Wilson and the Harewood House Trust on an ambitious project “Reimaging Our Landscape” to transform the visitor experience and the landscape to the West of Harewood House.

The project will see the improvement of the visitor welcome through regularisation, extension and landscaping of the existing car park and a new visitor welcome centre based around the grade II listed Bakehouse.   Removal of extraneous temporary structures, rationalisation of pedestrian paths and the removal of sections of hedging and fencing will reunite the House, Bakehouse and Stable (Courtyard) block once more into a single cohesive reimaging of the Pleasure Garden. A new south terrace will be formed with views over the lake and the former Bird Garden transformed into a new lakeside garden with sustainable, biodiverse plantings and new raised boardwalks.. A woodland walk will connect a renewed playscape with Sylvascape; a multi-purpose learning/play space in the Northern end of the woodland consisting of two treehouses, one at ground level and one higher up the trees.

This project is a once in a generation opportunity to significantly reimagine the setting of one of Britain’s finest houses.

We are delighted that two of our projects – Cooke’s Studios in Barrow and Sunwin House in Keighley – have been awarded Community Ownership Funding. Well done to our fantastic clients for all their hard work in securing this funding. At Cooke’s Studios (pictured), BLA are working with Signal Film & Media to transform the shopfronts of the Grade II Listed building and reorganise the ground floor and upper floor spaces to create a more welcoming and accessible experience for visitors. At Sunwin House, we are working with East Street Arts and Keighley Creative to convert a former department store in the town centre into artists’ studios, exhibition and classroom spaces. Find out more about the transformative work our clients do in their communities here: https://signalfilmandmedia.com/ , https://keighleycreative.org/ and https://eaststreetarts.org.uk/

Our work on the transformation at Hull Minster has been published in January’s edition of the RIBAJ.

We are delighted and privileged to have been involved in this project for over 15 years. The final phase of the project completed in September 2022. It is a great testament to the generosity, creativity, and determination of the whole project team and the church’s community that such a dramatic transformation has been achieved. We hope that the life of the Minster at the heart of Hull’s Old Town is now secured for many future generations to come.

Read the RIBAJ article here: Hull Minster extends a warm, wide welcome with new visitor centre

Read more about the project here: Hull Minster Project Page

Bauman Lyons is delighted to be teaming up with The Bowes Museum, Xanthe Quayle Landscape Architects, Burdus Access and Arup to fully refurbish and extend the parking and visitor access provision at The Bowes Museum funded by DCMS/Arts Council England’s MEND fund. The work should be complete by Summer 2024. It is a real privilege to be working at this unique and very special place.

We are so pleased that the Museum of Making at Derby Silk Mill has won three RIBA East Midlands Awards with the jury describing it as ‘an exceptional collaboration between Bauman Lyons, the client and stakeholders’.

The project was awarded RIBA East Midlands Regional Award winner 2023, and the Museum of Making won Client of the Year 2023. We’re thrilled too for our Director, Guy Smith, who won Project Architect of the Year 2023!

Read more here – RIBAJ article

The MoM has been the culmination of 11 years collective effort between Derby Museums and Bauman Lyons and has come to fruition through an innovative collaborative process with Creative Core, GCA, Speller Metcalfe, Derry Building Services, IP Initiatives and Preston Barber LLP. The Museum explores a new model of civic ‘institution’ that is inclusive and hands-on, affording public access to a diverse variety of cultural and commercial spaces including high quality workshop and learning facilities

Find out more about the Museum of Making on our Project Page.

We’re delighted to have been appointed by Signal Film & Media for the redevelopment of Cooke’s Studios, a creative media and arts centre in Barrow-in-Furness. The project will explore how to transform the Grade II Listed building to provide welcoming, inclusive and well-connected spaces to better serve its tenants and communities. 

We look forward to co-producing a long term vision for the centre with the Signal team along with our regular collaborators BWA, Preston Barber, Burdus Access and Skyhooks Engineering. 

Find out more about Cooke’s Studio’s vibrant offer at https://www.cookesstudios.co.uk/ and more about Signal’s fantastic work at https://signalfilmandmedia.com/

We are delighted that our scheme for 20 affordable, low-energy homes in Hebden Bridge was approved yesterday.

The scheme is the result of many years of work by our client, Calder Valley Community Land Trust. The ambition of the trust is to provide much needed affordable housing in Hebden Bridge whilst also prioritising low-energy, sensitive, contextual design. 

The site was formerly densely developed with terraced housing that was demolished in the 1960s. Since then the site has become greened with self-seeded tree growth. The proposed scheme strikes a balance between reintroducing housing and also retaining the green and open characteristics of the site, and between a highly contextual design that references the history, typologies, materials and massing of Hebden Bridge and the requirements of modern, low-carbon living. 

We look forward to continuing to support the trust as the project progresses. 

Find out more about the project on our Project Page.

Find our more about Calder Valley Community Land Trust.

We are absolutely delighted that the Museum of Making at Derby Silk Mill has been shortlisted in the RIBA East Midlands alongside other great regional projects. The MoM has been the culmination of 11 years collective effort between Derby Museums and Bauman Lyons and has come to fruition through an innovative collaborative process with Creative Core, GCA, Speller Metcalfe, Derry Building Services, IP Initiatives and Preston Barber LLP. The Museum explores a new model of civic ‘institution’ that is inclusive and hands-on, affording public access to a diverse variety of cultural and commercial spaces including high quality workshop and learning facilities.

Find out more about the Museum of Making on our Project Page.

We were pleased to attend the official opening of the Trinity Rooms at Hull Minster last Thursday. The opening concluded the third phase in a 10-year project for Bauman Lyons supporting our client Holy Trinity Development.

The new extension builds on the success of the previous two phases, which involved opening up Trinity Square to the front of the Minster and reordering the interior of the Minster, to make the church more accessible and welcoming to the city and to allow the client to use the 700-year-old, Grade I-listed building in a more flexible way as part of safeguarding the long-term future of this historic building.

Sited to the south elevation of the Minster, the Trinity Room extension is designed to provide a welcoming face which opens on to Trinity Square and to serve as a part of the overall journey around the Minster. It is designed to be flexible, accommodating a new cafe and servery which can also be used for events and workshops, as well as housing some of the Minster’s heritage collections, new WCs and plant room. The new building responds to the craft and detail of the existing Minster through careful use of a calm palette of materials including oak interiors, and a patinated brass ‘tracery’ screen which wraps around the glazing of the extension and references the stone tracery of the magnificent Nave windows.

Bauman Lyons were appointed as architect and lead designer for the project, including contract administration services on site. 

See project page for more information – Project Page

We are thrilled that Museum of Making at Derby Silk Mill won the Conservation & Regeneration Award at the National Constructing Excellence Awards. It’s a great recognition of the collective efforts of a brilliant client, and committed integrated project team. The award caps off a fantastic year for the building since it opened in September 2021, also picking up the Building Awards Refurbishment Project of the Year, and a series of successes at the East Midlands Constructing Excellence awards.

See project page for more information – Project Page

Read again RIBAJ article on Museum of Making – RIBAJ August Issue 

We are pleased to have submitted a full planning and listed building consent application for the refurbishment and extension of Grade II listed Stephenson Memorial Hall in Chesterfield.

Over the past year and a half, Bauman Lyons have led a multidisciplinary team of consultants, working closely with the client team, to develop an exciting scheme that reimagines the existing theatre and museum & art gallery as a single integrated cultural facility.

We have also supported the client in developing a submission to the government’s Levelling Up Fund which we were thrilled to hear was successful!


More project information:
Project page
Chesterfield Borough Council press release