Happiness is a tidy store room!

Posted on May 26, 2012 by knolenationaltrust

Along with the many other things that keep us busy in the show rooms, changing light bulbs is another job. Many of the light fittings are several decades old, combined with the very damp environment, they often fail. We always hope that it’s just the light bulb that needs changing but more often or not it becomes a job for our electricians to come and repair the light fitting itself. This week 2 lights in the Brown Gallery and 3 in the Kings Room needed some investigation.

Emily changing the sconce light bulb…only to find the light still wouldn’t work

Wall sconce in the Kings Room that had stopped working. After trying a couple of new bulbs it still didn’t work, so it was another one added to the list for our electricians to look at.

By the end of Friday all the lights were in working order…we’ll see what Monday brings. On Tuesday we finished the last bit of floor waxing for a while when the Cartoon Gallery was re-waxed. We had got a bit behind our schedule but we’ve caught up with ourselves again. Each show room floor will be waxed again after the Jubilee bank holidays and before the start of the summer holidays.

Little and large, our floor polishers.

In our last blog we documented our efforts of getting a new cover on the James II Bed mattress. It was all ready to be moved back to the Venetian Ambassadors Bedroom (VAB), and this week we actually managed to get it there! 4 flights of stairs, 2 court yards and 2 long galleries later we got it to the VAB and back on the bed.

Taking the transport cover off the mattress

Lisa, Sarah and Melinda get the mattress in to place on the James II Bed

Back where it belongs!

With the mattress out of the store room we could finally begin to tidy and reorganise the room. Something that has been on the ‘to do’ list for nearly two years. With the help of our volunteer Tom we sorted through a lot of objects in the store that are awaiting to be accessionied to our inventory and moved tables around to create better work space.

Found objects in the collections store

Death-watch and Common Furniture Beetle damage to the backboard

Hello Mr Death-watch Beetle!

Unfortunately as we were working we found lots of dead and live pest insects, Varied Carpet Beetle and their larvae, and Death-Watch Beetle. This is a concern as the store room is environmentally controlled. The store rooms are always one of those things that slip down the priority list, and we don’t get to spend as much time cleaning the store and condition checking objects as we should.

The store is in need of a really thorough deep clean, which we’ll be doing next week. We will treat what we can for pest insects, and keep up increased cleaning of the space to try and bring the pest insect infestation under control. This will be easier to do now that the room has had a good tidy up.

Tidied and reorganised work space in the collections store.

Emily, Melinda, Lucy and Sarah.

How to put a cover on a 400 year old mattress, and other things!

Posted on May 19, 2012 by knolenationaltrust

As well as the usual visitor route clean, and some more floor waxing, this week we found some time to go up to the store-room. There is a huge backlog of work to be done in the store, mostly condition checking objects and re-packaging them to make them more accessible. This work is currently hindered by a lack of space in the store. A large area is taken up by one of the mattresses belonging to the James II Bed (now partially dismantle and being conserved at NT textile studio).

James II Bed mattress. About the size of a modern large double, but twice the height…and full of feathers! The tear can just be seen in the middle along the top.

To create a suitable work space the mattress needs to go back to the Venetian Ambassadors Bedroom where the remainder of the bed is. This you may assume would be an easy task. Think again! The original mattress cover has deteriorated quite badly and there is a large tear in the middle, any movement of the mattress causes feathers to come flying out. There was no way the mattress could be moved from the table, let alone down 3 flights of stairs, and across 2 courtyards, up the Great Stairs and through the 3 show rooms.

Entrance end of our store room in need of reorganisation to create a suitable work area.

Following the advise from our textile conservator it was decided that a new outer cover should be made for the mattress that would contain the feathers. The original cover is too fragile around the tear to sew it up, so this was the next best option. Our fabulous sewing volunteer Kristine made 2 covers for us. One to be the new outer cover, and a second cover to transport the mattress. This Wednesday we finally had enough time and people to get the new covers on.

Lucy, Sarah and our volunteer Tom nearly have the new outer cover on.

The mattress took a bit of persuasive handling and some brilliant team work but we succeeded! Now we just need another free morning with enough people, (and no rain) to get it over to the show rooms. Then we can reorganise the work tables in the store-room and get the object condition checking under way.

Its on! Tom Velcro’s up the seam.

Wednesday continued to be a busy day as Sarah and Tom went in to another store, our temporary store during the building work in the Spangled Dressing Room. We are carrying out weekly inspections of the paintings and upholstered furniture to check for any pest insect activity or active mould growth. So we have ongoing monitoring we are using pest insect traps and one of our temperature and relative humidity sensors too.

Tom, an MA student studying preventive conservation, inspecting the upholstery of a stool from the Spangled Bedroom.

Unfortunately we think that some of the mould on a couple of the paintings has got worse since the room has become a store. Due to the dust protection that has been installed it has created a sealed room with much less air circulation. Until the room was sealed and contents put in we were unsure exactly what the environmental conditions would become. The many weeks of wet weather have not helped as the relative humidity has been much higher for longer than usual at this time of year.

This painting already had quite an extensive covering of mould, but it has got worse since being in store.

Hopefully we’ll be installing a fan, and / or a dehumidifier in to the store-room to maintain the relative humidity below 65% to stop the mould developing. This will depend on whether or not our electricians can get a power supply to the room. One of our biggest problems in looking after the show rooms and collection is the lack of power sockets and power supply. We use what seems like miles of extension leads just to vacuüm the visitor route every day.

During Friday’s ‘Meet the Conservation Team’ event we vacuüm cleaned the upholstery of two stools from the Ballroom. They were last cleaned three years ago, and each stool took about half an hour each to clean. We used our adjustable suction setting vacuums with soft brush nozzle ends.

Stool from the Ballroom, the upholstery was due to be vacuumed cleaned, having last been cleaned in 2009.

After each textile is cleaned we empty the contents of the vacuüm bag so we can analyse the contents, compare it to the last clean and see the difference in the amount of dust removed. We also check for any fibres of the textile, this will tell us that either the suction of the vacuüm was set to high, or the textile is deteriorating.

Inside the vacuüm bag.

Emptying the contents to out in a clear plastic bag for analysis.

Job done for another three years! Just four more stools from the Ballroom to clean now.

Interpretation demonstrating the variable suction settings of our vacuums.

Lucy, Melinda, Emily and Sarah.

This week…

Posted on May 12, 2012 by knolenationaltrust

..wasn’t as exciting as last week, but we still had lots of work to do. We were grateful not to have to do any press interviews this week!

As Monday was Bank Holiday and we were open, all the show rooms had to have their deep clean completed on the one closed day this week (Tuesday). We managed to fit in some much-needed floor waxing too, in the Leicester Gallery, Venetian Ambassadors Bedroom, Billiard Room and Museum Room. The wet weather has led to much more time spent on the care of floor than dusting objects.

Melinda vacuuming the Reynolds Room eyemat

When vacuuming the floor on Friday we discovered some new scratches to some of the floor boards. We couldn’t figure out what ad caused them, particularly as one seems to have been created by a sharp object!

New scratches on the Ballroom floor

Sarah inspected the furniture in the Spangled Dressing Room this week, which at the moment has been turned in to a temporary store during the building work. We’ll be carrying out weekly checks in here as the environment in this room could change as the room is sealed off (for dust protection) when normally there is much more air movement as there are no doors between neighbouring rooms and the windows are very drafty. The potential micro climate in the space could encourage mould growth and pest insect activity. In fact during the inspection Sarah did find a live ‘woolly bear’ no top of the dust sheet of one of the stools. However there were no signs of any recent pest insect damage, or mould growth.

Adult Varied Carpet Beetle on the left, and its larva the ‘woolly bear’ on the right. The larvae causes damage by eating natural textiles.

Woolly bear now in our pest pot so we can show our visitors.

On Wednesday Sally Bowling visited from Rupert Harris Conservation* to look at the lantern on the Great Stairs.

The lantern is currently displayed with real candles in the holders, but lit with a modern lightbulb

We would like to dispose of the modern central lightbulb and put electric candles in the candle holders instead. Sally explained how the lantern could be adjusted and the different options we had for lightbulbs and candle look finishes.

Sally checking the height of one of the potential new candle fittings

More, vacuuming, dusting and floor waxing next week!

Emily, Sarah, Melinda and Lucy

*You find out more about Rupert Harris Conservation via their website:

http://www.rupertharris.com/index.php

Newsflash…Knole one step closer to £7.5million for conservation project!

Posted on May 11, 2012 by knolenationaltrust

Knole has received a green light from the Heritage Lottery Fund to develop our plans for Phase 2 of our conservation project, Inspired by Knole.

“We are thrilled by the news,” says Emma Slocombe, Knole curator. “Knole is one of the country’s most precious and exceptional historic houses. We are delighted that the Heritage Lottery Fund agrees that our plans to share Knole’s heritage with our visitors should go through to the next round of the funding process. If we are successful in our final application, we will not only be able to secure the building and its contents for the future, but we can start telling the stories of this extraordinary house in compelling new ways.”

The decade-long project aims to create a public conservation studio at the heart of a community-based programme of heritage and conservation skills training. As well as the studio and learning complex, we plan to open attic rooms and the Outer Wicket tower to visitors.

The studio will provide the foundation for our massive conservation programme, during which the collection will be removed to the studio room by room and conserved. The rooms themselves will be rewired, insulated and new heating and lighting systems installed. Each year we will share with visitors the secrets learned as history is peeled back. Once conserved in the studio, Knole’s collections will return to their rightful place.

The Heritage Lottery Fund believes our plans “have the potential to deliver high-quality benefits and value for Lottery money”. We will now develop final plans for the project, which will cost £17.3m in total. Knole will bid for £7.5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund in round 2 of the bid process, with the balance coming from the National Trust and a fundraising campaign, which has already raised £1.5m.

Transforming Knole will require a great number of helpers, working throughout the property to conserve and maintain Knole and its collections. They will also help the public, the groups who work with us and our school visitors discover and enjoy the property. We aim to work in partnership with businesses, community groups, education providers, families and individuals as we develop what Knole has to offer. We plan to train the conservators of the future, and to pass on our knowledge of conservation skills and heritage crafts through an exciting training and skills programme for the general public.

Stuart McLeod, Head of HLF South East, said: “Knole is one the UK’s most spectacular examples of both a Tudor palace and a renaissance mansion with an intriguing history encompassing the eras of King Henry VIII and novelist Vita Sackville-West. Linked for centuries to the bustling market town of Sevenoaks, the house has always been a backdrop to people’s daily lives, particularly as its medieval deer park is open for everyone’s use. The Heritage Lottery Fund’s initial support indicates our belief that Knole should be preserved for the future but we also welcome the National Trust’s innovative plans to create a studio where visitors will be able to learn more about heritage conservation.”

How do you look after tens (if not 100s) of leopards?

Posted on May 7, 2012 by knolenationaltrust

Knole is adorned with leopards almost everywhere you look. Stone leopards sit proud on the gables of the roof, look down on visitors from the screen in the Great Hall and greet you as you climb the Jacobean Great Stairs.

Leopards on the west front

The two leopards that frequently appear at Knole, on either side of the Sackville crest, are known as supporters and only knights and aristocrats were entitled to use them on their personal heraldry. Exactly why the leopard was chosen is not known but like lions, they symbolise rank, status and therefore power. Thomas Sackville became Lord Buckhurst in the 1560s and the use of the leopard probably dates from this time. The use of the leopard may be connected to the Sackville family link with the Boleyns, namely Anne Boleyn, and through her, to Queen Elizabeth. The royal connection was a familial link of which Sackvilles were undoubtedly proud and wanted to advertise as can be seen all over Knole, often accompanied with their coats of arms.

The leopards are made of a variety of materials which all need different types of care. Here are some of them leopards from around the house and courtyards:

Leopards supporting the Sackville family crest at the top of the Great Hall screen. We can only clean these once a year in the winter as it takes a very high scaffold to get to the them. They are dusted with a pony hair brush and lint free dusters.

More leopards at the bottom of the Great Hall screen. These are dusted weekly.

Painted leopards. This and the following leopard are part of the grisaille painted decoration scheme from Thomas Sackville’s remodelling of the Great Stairs (1605-1608). The wall painting is extremely fragile and is best left untouched as areas of the paint scheme are flaking and cracking. If we see any cobwebs on the wall we very carefully tease them off using the tip of a soft pony hair brush.

This leopard (holding the family crest) is a painted version of the wooden newel posts.

Two leopard newel posts on the Great Stairs. They are painted wood, not as fragile as the wall painting but we still use a pony hair brush to dust them. We dust them about once or twice a week.

Glass leopards…in the windows of the Great Stairs. Other than removing cobwebs with the tip of a pony hair brush, when necessary, no other cleaning is carried out to painted glass, except for any remedial works needed which would be done by a glass conservator.

Painted, carved wooden leopards in the Ballroom panelling. Dusted with a hogs hair brush. These are within reaching distance and are cleaned every time the room is deep cleaned during the open season.

Plaster leopards…part of the Reynolds Room ceiling decoration. These are cleaned once a year during the winter clean when the scaffold is up.

There are also leopards in the Retainers Gallery ceiling.

Leopards on the lead drainpipes in Stone Court

Thomas Sackville really was a bit of a show off!

Lucy, Sarah, Melinda and Emily

Conservation of Thomas Sackville’s picture frame

Posted on May 2, 2012 by knolenationaltrust

The portrait of Thomas Sackville hanging in the Great Hall attributed to John de Critz dates to about 1601. Last week a frame conservator from Tankerdale* came to do some consolidation work to the frame before going on loan to the National Portrait Gallery as a part of their upcoming ‘Double Take’ exhibition.

Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

Siobhan and Dan (Tankerdale conservator) carry Thomas Sackville to the Ballroom where a workspace was created.

Here are some notes from the condition report carried out by Dan, the conservator, on the history of the frame and its condition before treatment, and the treatment process carried out.

Object description: The elaborate frame is unique and perhaps belongs to the 1620s; it has been altered at the corners to fit the picture. Unusually for such an intricately carved English frame of this date, it is in pine rather than oak. In style the paired scrolls at the centres owe something to the Sansovino style in framing, popular in Venice, but there are other influences at work, still to understand. As originally finished the elaborate carvings would have been brightly gilt, standing out against a blue background. Much of the gilding is now obscured by bronze overpaint which also hides all but a few traces of the blue paintwork. We shall see other early frames with rather similar paired scrolls, some with painted backgrounds, in the Ballroom and Cartoon Gallery.

Condition assessment
Structure: Mitre corners have opened slightly, but are stable. Otherwise sound.

The split is where the mitre joint is opening up.

Surface: Gold and blue original surface can be seen in a few places, although it is mostly obscured by a later brown paint and bronze powder scheme.

The different layers of decoration

Treatment process:

Hot rabbit skin glue was applied to the surface of the frame (9 parts deionised water : 1 part granules), and the softened curling/flaking decoration was gently eased back into place, to adhere to the substrate. Excess rabbit skin glue was cleaned off the surface with warm water.

The painted panel was removed from the frame, and conservation grade felt was inserted into the rebate before the painted panel was refitted into the frame. 8 new brass plates were applied to the back of the frame to secure the painted panel.

The flaking areas of decoration have now been consolidated with rabbit skin glue

No losses to the frame decoration were filled or re-touched on this occasion, the primary reason for conservation was to make the frame safe for exhibition. Further work on the frame will need discussion on how the conserved appearance of the frame should look.

Sarah, Melinda, Emily and Lucy

* You can find out more about Tankerdale via their website:
http://www.tankerdale.co.uk/