Dating back to 1640, Alcester Baptist Church was, at first, an illegal religious gathering site included in a list of seven Churches which formed the Midland Baptist Association in 1655 meeting illegally until The Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 ended the persecution. In 1735 the Meeting House (now the Hall) was built and during that century, Alcester was in the mainstream of Baptist life in this country. The building was extended in 1816 to house a flourishing Sunday School of 180 children and the present Chapel was built in 1859 under the ministry of Rev. Moses Philpin.
Today, the church and it’s hall provide a valuable community resource offering toddler groups and a well-being café session that is free and open to all. However, users of the hall were beginning to suffer from the poor acoustics within the room. Luckily church treasurer, David Kerrigan, had previously worked with Sound Reduction Systems Ltd (SRS) on a similar project using their decorative, Class-A rated, Sonata Aurio acoustic panels and gave them a call to see if they could help out at Alcester.
SRS sent Alex Docherty to site, who commented:
“As with so many similar buildings, the hard, acoustically reflective surfaces and lack of soft furnishings was creating a high level of reverberation and echo making speech intelligibility particularly poor. Once the details of the hall had been entered into the SRS computer prediction programme, it showed an estimated mid-frequency reverberation time (Tmf) of 3.64s – way too high for a room of this nature.”
It was calculated that a total treatment of 30sqm of Sonata absorbers were required to bring the reverberation time to an acceptable level. SRS sent their specialist fitter to site with 1200 x 1200 x 50mm Sonata Aurio absorbers and installed the required treatment neatly and evenly around the fixtures and fittings on the ceiling. Following the installation hall Treasurer, David Kerrigan commented:
“The fitting went well last Friday and, as usual, has made a very significant difference to the acoustics of the room.”
If you have a noise issue in your scout hut, school hall, village hall, or in any large, open area, please get in touch to see how SRS can help with soundproofing and sound absorption. You can fill in our simple 3 Step Estimator form by clicking here. The 3 Step Estimator works within your mobile device, so you can upload the pictures and information directly from site if required. Alternatively, you can just email or whatsapp us with the room dimensions and a few pictures of the ceiling and walls in the room.
Useful Links: https://www.alcesterbaptist.org.uk/
