The College was founded in 1438 and one of the main challenges was to safeguard people and property without affecting the visual appeal of buildings from the reign of Henry VI.

Fellows and staff at the College are using ACT’s own contactless smart cards with the ACT Pro Mifare 1030 proximity reader. Crucially, this is a slim-line mullion reader and for the All Souls project, ACT used their 1030PM brass finish (usually associated with audio entry panels) and designed a flush plate in solid brass that is fitted to walls near doorways in order to blend with stone dressings that can date back to 1440. The ACT Pro 1030 unit is suitable for both indoor and outdoor installation.

Richard Huison of ACT said: “It was crucial that our equipment did not disturb the aesthetic appearance of the site. The client sets a premium on access control but does not want it to be overt. ACT worked with Executive Alarms to ‘piggy-back’ any conduit needed for our units with existing structured cabling wherever possible and the fact that the controllers are IP units meant the installation neither disrupted the core activities of the college nor compromised the integrity of the buildings. The minimal amount of cabling needed has been hidden in mortar lines by stone masons.”

The ACT Pro 1520 single-door IP controllers used here are expandable up to 32 doors through use of ACT door stations. ACT’s range of door stations offers break glass monitoring, reader short circuit protection, voltage monitoring and anti-passback. Faults are reported on a web interface and the ACT Enterprise software.