Kiosks, Handsets & Speakers – Dean Castle

The Dean Castle Keep was built in 1360, some 50 years after the Battle of Bannockburn when local man Robert Boyd was awarded the land for his bravery in battle. The Boyd family were established enough to build a stone castle, with the Keep their primary living quarters and a fine place to entertain guests from high society. About 110 years later the Palace was built alongside.

Bright White Ltd were commissioned to refresh the castle’s visitor experience, populating both the Keep and Palace with new interpretation involving incredible object displays, innovative media, interactivity, and plenty of great real life stories shared with various technologies – from Blackbox AV’s Atmospheric Loudspeakers, MIAS+ devices and two Touchscreen Kiosks.

You’ll find our Touchscreen Kiosks with hearing aid compatible handsets installed in the Keep Cellar and the ground floor of the Palace.

The Heavy Duty Handsets with Hearing Loop are installed alongside, ideal for a busy exhibition environment such as this, securely stored on their magnetic hangers when not in use and designed to be robust enough to withstand the daily use you would expect from a site that attracts a large number of visitors every year.

In the keep you will also experience the MIAS+ devices which are being played on a loop in the Keep Cellar, the Dungeon and the Chapel. This installation creates an atmosphere to recreate sounds you might have experienced when the Castle was home to the Boyd family.

Elsewhere some simple but effective button activated audio points can also be found.

On the first floor of the Palace, in the Banqueting Hall, you can also find a particularly interesting audio exhibit, showcasing five of the atmospheric loudspeakers (each activated by pressing a button) that have been installed into free standing plinths.

Each speaker – connected together through some bespoke circuitry they put together – plays the same piece of music but showcasing a different instrument from the collection. So if multiple (or all) of the units are playing at the same time, the instruments will compliment each other and visitors can hear the full musical ensemble. The plinth displays a question with a hidden answer and this invites you to play each short piece of music with the aim to guess which instrument is playing.

Upon completion of this impressive interpretive project carried out by Bright White Ltd (who were appointed by East Ayrshire Leisure, part of East Ayrshire Council) Dean Castle re-opened to the public receiving record numbers of visitors exploring the collection and new interpretation on offer.