Mastering the medieval

A Hinowa boom liftsolved the tricky access challenge posed by a medieval tower.

Ightham Mote, near Sevenoaks in Kent, is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of an English 14^th century manor house. The 70 plus rooms in the National Trust property are arranged around a central courtyard, surrounded on all sides by a square moat that is crossed by three narrow bridges.

Conservationists working for the National Trust required an access platform to enable brickwork replacement at the top of the tower, which was built during the Wars of the Roses. The machine had to be light weight so it wouldn’t damage the courtyard and compact enough to pass over the bridge and through a narrow archway.

The contractors turned to Cannon Access for a solution and the independent access specialist supplied a Hinowa Lightlift 23.12. This articulating boom provides a maximum working height of 23.2m and outreach of up to 11.4m. It has a stowed width of 0.99m for accessing hard to reach areas and weighs just 3,100kg.

Tom Cannon, founder and director of Cannon Access, said: “A narrow self-propelled boom could have just fitted, but was way too heavy for the bridge and did not have anywhere near enough height or reach for the tower.

“The Hinowa 23.12 has really compact dimensions so it passed easily over the bridge and through the archway. The comparatively long tracks of the Hinowa machine spread the weight more than some other tracked booms, making it ideal for working in the courtyard of this historic manor house.”

Cannon Access recently took delivery of the boom from Hinowa dealer Access Platform Sales (APS).