Cirencester Castle Stairs

Mitchell Eley Gould were asked to help with a scheme at ‘The Castle’ in Cirencester.

‘The Castle’ was originally designed as barracks and was recently used by a local College before Money.co.uk took up the building as their offices.

The scheme of alterations included taking on the main rear approach, where the existing castle stairs were ‘floating’ at first floor without their historic steps leading to it.

The practice worked closely with the client, design team, English Heritage and a timber frame specialist, Carpenter Oak and Woodland, to devise the installation of a new modern stair.

The design plays with the idea of the heavy timber structures associated with castle defences and cannon trucks, and was inspired by timber drying stacks, where timber is loosely cross-stacked to create amazing structures.

The design allows a simple flight of steps and landings to expand and tumble down as a series of giant steps, creating a forum, a place to sit and talk or eat lunch, and a place to gather the whole client team for discussion.

The layout of the timber-stacked oak steps is then constrained by the black handrail made from laser-cut steel that adds edge protection whilst it un-winds down the stair to enshroud new trees either side. The black steel echoing the timber jointing ironmongery of old.

As time passes the timbers will take on a patina from the weather as they age to silver and also the patina of life from where people regularly walk and sit leaving marks for future generations.