Knole Unwrapped, how is it going?

Knole Unwrapped was launched earlier this year, and we’re now half way through our second intake. The whole project has taken a lot of planning and time commitment from all members of the Conservation Team, and we definitely came across some wrinkles that we wanted to iron out from intake one.

Intake one hard at work!

Technical issues with laptops and digital cameras became one of the first hitches, resolved for intake two with the use of iPads. It was discussed among the volunteers that these would be more user friendly and with an integrated camera they make uploading images to object condition reports much easier.  After going through the 5 weeks of intake one, following feedback from the Conservation Team and the Unwrapped volunteers, for intake two we re-jigged the 5 week schedule to allow more time in the store room getting hands on with the objects.

Val and Roz update an object condition report form.

As we are working methodically along the shelves in the store room intake one had the pleasure of working with some mystery boxes of textile fragments. There are several of these boxes, and until now their contents were unknown. The volunteers have now condition checked several of these fragments and written up condition reports for them. Now they have identified they exist we can also have them added on to our inventory. Many of the textiles had been stored rolled, possibly to make the most of the space they had with the type of storage boxes they were using. However it is generally better to store textiles flat where possible.

One of the textile fragments discovered.

One of the volunteers from intake one, Alexandra has written about her experience (we promise we didn’t bribe her to write any of the following

“It sounded intriguing: the opportunity to look behind the scenes at Knole and learn how to handle and record items not usually seen by members of the public. As a steward in the showrooms, it was a unique chance to get closer to the Knole collection and learn how historical items are catalogued. As a one-time helper with the “winter clean” it was an exciting way to extend my very basic preventive conservation skills. “Knole Unwrapped” did all that and more.

We were the “guinea pig group”, the first intake for House Steward Emily Watt’s brilliant idea to allow people outside Knole literally to un-wrap the items kept in store, check their condition, photograph them and record all that information on the collection database. Between the five of us, we had skills in the history of textiles, photography, museums, historical re-enactment and all-round Knole knowledge. Roz, John, Val, Susan and I all learnt as we went along. There were times, to start with, when the technology of recording took longer to master than the techniques of assessing but we got faster. By the time we got to the fifth and final week we had got it down to a fine art and the weather had at last warmed up. Thank goodness because in the early sessions it was hard to feel your fingers at the end of a day.

We never got as far as furniture for John. Instead, and perhaps appropriately since Knole is known for its textiles, our boxes revealed endless fragments of cloth, stitching and fringing. We were lucky to have Roz with us as her knowledge of textile manufacturing techniques and historical context made even the most threadbare of pieces interesting. But it was the fabric from the Spangled Bed that made it all worthwhile. In better condition than the real thing it gave a sense of how beautiful it must once have been. It was one of those moments that had you wondering who had cut those pieces from the curtains around the bed and why? It’s all part of the biography of an object, as Emily would say.

John and Sue taking detailed photographs for the condition report forms.

Thanks go to the Conservation Team of Sarah, Melinda, Lucy and Zena who were watchful, patient and encouraging and to Helen the House and Collections Manager who helped Emily deliver the learning hours at the start of each day, and the tours of the house and those areas yet to be seen by visitors. The first Knole Unwrapped group were a pleasure to meet and work with. It’d be nice to think they’d have us back later in the year so we can get to do it all again.”

Zena, Melinda, Emily, Sarah and Lucy

Re-hanging tapestries, all in a days work!

As the second phase of external building work has finished we are beginning to reinstate the rooms affected. On Monday the first stage of returning Lady Betty’s Bedroom back to its normal self began with the re-hanging of the two seventeenth century tapestries.

Lady Betty’s Bedroom

Lifting one corner of the bed with lifting straps to get the slider in to place.

Before we could prepare the tapestries for re-hanging, we needed to move Lady Betty’s bed forward to allow us enough room to work and fit in a ladder. To do this we lifted each leg of the bed one by one using lifting straps, to place sliderz under the legs. The sliderz allow us to slide the bed rather than lift it and move it, which creates less physical stress to the structure of the bed.

Sliderz in place under all for bed legs, and its ready to slide forward!

Moving the tapestries from store in the Great Hall to the Ballroom. AS they were on rollers that were 4.5 meters in length, the only place we could store them was under the refectory table in the Hall. The Hall was in use by a school group that day so we moved them to the Cartoon Gallery to prepare them for re-hanging

Textile conservator Zenzie Tinker came along to help us with the tapestries. The first task was to roll the tapestries on to different length rollers. While the tapestries were stored they were on rollers that were 4.5 meters long, this was to make sure they were stable while being held up on textile blocks. The ceiling of Lady Betty’s Bedroom is at least a meter shorter so we needed them on a shorter roller which would allow us to place the roller with tapestry rolled round it upright. This would then enable us to unroll the tapestry along the wall securing the tapestry to the wall with the Velcro as we went.

Preparing the temporary shorter roller.

And we’re ready to (re)roll!

The second attempt at re-rolling on tot he shorter roller, this time starting from scratch with the tapestry fully unrolled.

However best thought out plans don’t always go the way you hope. Initially we began to unroll one tapestry off its long roller and directly on to the new shorter roller. As we had almost completed this task the tapestry had rolled too much at an angle and the ends were spiralling off, which would cause us problems once it was upright. It was decided that we needed to fully unroll the tapestry so that it was flat out on the floor and re-roll the tapestry this way on to the new roller. This meant we could line the roller up better and have better control over the tapestry as we rolled it to prevent it rolling off centre.

Getting the tapestry vertical ready for re-hanging

The second attempt proved to be much easier and with in no time at all the tapestry was rolled and ready to be re-hung. Once the tapestry was positioned upright Zenzie climbed the ladder while other members of the Conservation Team footed the ladder and supported the tapestry. Then little by little the tapestry was unrolled and Zenzie secured the Velcro sewn on the top edge of the tapestry to the opposite strip of Velcro on a wooden baton on the wall.

And the re-hanging begins!

Nearly there!

The second tapestry proved to be much easier. For one it wasn’t as a wide as the first, so less textile to manage, also we started off swapping rollers by fully unrolling the tapestry and re-rolling it from flat. Our last job of the day was to reposition the bed again. The whole process took about 5 hours. Thanks to Zenzie for her assistance, it made the task much less stressful then had we attempted it on our own.

The second tapestry almost up.

Emily, Zena, Lucy, Melinda and Sarah

Textile cleaning in the Spangled Bedroom

Back in March, Jane Smith, one of the conservators from the National Trust’s Textile Studio in Norfolk came to Knole for 3 days to carry out some cleaning and preventive conservation to upholstered furniture in the Spangled Bedroom.

The X-framed chair and eight stools are covered with the same crimson satin as the Spangled Bed. It is decorated with an extremely rare applique strapwork pattern and originally sewn with small silver spangles, or sequins, now tarnished and viewed today as black dots.

The material is now extremely fragile due to the damage caused by light and relative humidity. Due to the importance and delicate condition of these textiles they are cleaned less frequently than some of the other textiles in the collection, and usually by a member of the Textile Studio team.

An area in the top right corner of the stool after vacuuming showing the removal of the build up of dust.

As well cleaning the textiles on the stools and chair with a conservation vacuum and a micro-vac on low suction, the chair had some netting applied to the back of the chair to prevent loose fibres and threads from coming away. Other parts of the chair had been previously netted a couple of years ago. The net is a mono filament nylon net dyed before hand in the studio to a special recipe to match the colour of the original material. Gutermann polyester thread is used to sew on the netting. Loose pieces of metal thread were also secured in place with bookbinder’s paste.

The netting is held in place with pins until it is secured with thread.

Jane in action!

Thanks to Jane for the photos and information from her report on her work. The Textile Studio have thier own blog to: http://nttextileconservationstudio.wordpress.com/

Emily, Lucy, Melinda, Zena and Sarah

It’s been a while…but we promise we’ve been busy!

So let’s catch up.

Opening weekend already seems like such a long time ago, it was so cold, and the run up to it had its usual amount of craziness. The cold weather had delayed building work and the application of the new lime render on the east wall. Lime render cannot be applied in temperatures below 5c otherwise it will not set properly. This in turn delayed the removal of internal dust protection in most of the first half of the house.

With the timetable of work somewhat out of everybody’s control due to the Siberian winter the UK was experiencing, finishing the winter clean and reinstating the show rooms affected by the building work proved to be a bit of challenging time.  The Conservation Team as always pulled out all the stops to get everything ready on time.

Other jobs we had to do before we opened was find somewhere to temporarily store the two tapestries from Lady Betty’s Bedroom, that had been taken down for the building work.  The tapestries are rolled on 4.5metre long tubes, so there aren’t many areas that presented themselves as suitable places to put them.  We settled with under the refectory table into he Great Hall.

Lady Betty’s Bedroom tapestries temporarily stored under the Great Hall table.

The beautiful Imari dish that has lived at the top of the Lead Stairs for many years has now been moved to the China Closet as part of the re-display of the space back to a historic inventory.

The Imari dish now on display in Lady Betty’s China Closet.

One of the nicest jobs to do to prepare for opening is starting up the clocks again.  Once the clocks and ticking and chiming again it feels like the house is brought back to life ready for the new season.  Thankfully they all behaved themselves and we didn’t have any problems in restarting them.

A key to wind each clock, the biggest key is for the smallest clock!

Each clock has its own record of when it is wound.

Museum of London Archaeology’s Geomatics team have been at Knole for several weeks now.  They are undertaking a measured survey of the showrooms and new spaces we’ll be opening to visitors to provide, for the first time, accurate floor plans of the rooms.  They will also be photographing the spaces and combining this information with survey information to provide elevation and ceiling plans so that we will have a three-dimensional picture.

Neville and Catherine from MOLA surveying at the top of the Lead Stairs.

This information will be used by architects, Rodney Melville Partnership, as part of the design process for the Inspired by Knole project and will also help us to identify key locations within the building (under the floorboards and behind the panelling) which we want to investigate further as part of the archaeological programme – to help us to better understand the origins and developments of the different parts of the building complex.

Some of MOLAs kit, Total Station (basically an electronic theodolite).

We have some brilliant new interpretation in the Venetian Ambassadors Bedroom, and most exciting of all, the conserved headboard of the James II Bed on display!  The room has four boxes of parts of the bed that have returned from the Textile Studio.  We won’t be reconstructing the bed until after the Inspired by Knole project, the less the parts of the bed are handled the less likely it is that any physical damage will occur to this historically important state bed.

How the Venetian Ambassadors Bedroom looks this season, complete with the conserved headboard on display.

And finally…introducing our new seasonal Conservation and Engagement Assistant Zena.

Now we are settling in to the open season cleaning routine, which is differeent for us this year as the house is open 6 days a week, meaning less cleaning time.  Therefore we have ad to re-jig our cleaning programmes and think about how best to use the time we do have and what the priority areas in the house are.  We also have an extra room to care for,  the newly opened Estate Office, which is home to Knole’s oral history project.

The new and interactive Estate Office

Lucy, Emily, Melinda, Sarah and Zena

Sealing history!

Most of the repair work to the east front is nearly complete. Re-rendering is taking place on the southern end of the façade (the exterior walls to Lady Betty’s rooms). As the old cement render and lathes were removed it revealed not only the extent of the repair required to the timber frame but also lots of voids in the structure and a few interesting finds. Including pencil inscriptions from earlier workman in the 1880s and a match box with workers signatures in.

Some of the voids uncovered could only be accessed again if the exterior of the wall was to be removed again. It was in one of these voids, between Lady Betty’s Sitting Room and Bedroom, at the height of the window pediments, that we have left our mark behind, in the form of the a time capsule.

The void!

Inside the stainless steel (that will not rust even in salt water) capsule we included information, drawings and photos of the building work and repairs; photos of staff and volunteers at Knole and other project staff members.

Knole Team March 2013

As the work began in 2012 and it was such a significant year we also included newspaper cuttings about the Olympics and a Queens Diamond jubilee flag.

With the assistance of one of the contractors we placed the time capsule into the void.

Emily and Nick llift the capsule in to the void

The next day the hole was closed up when new lathes were secured in place before new lime render was then applied. A little piece of Knole history sealed up until the next time the exterior wall requires repair…in 100, 150, 200 years…?

And it’s in!

Emily

Inventory of contents of Knole Time Capsule 5^th March 2013

Photographs of staff and volunteers
List of staff and contractors involved in Phase 1
External photographs of Phase 1.1 and 1.2
Internal photographs of Phase 1.1
Invitations and menus of fundraising events – Dinner 6^th May 2001 and Garden Party 15^th June 2012
Knole Spirit of Place statement
Knole Conservation Team Handbook
Knoledge – guide for children
Inspired by Knole project newsletters June 2011, October 2011, July 2012.
Knole guidebook 2012 edition
Knole park map for visitors
Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee celebratory tea towel
2012 National Trust members handbook
2012 and 2013 property leaflets
National Trust ‘Detect and protect’ leaflet
Newspapers featuring London 2012 Olympics
Press cuttings about Knole x3
Blue Wool Dosimeter
Phillips screwdriver
USB stick containing oral history interviews and time-lapse videos of the Conservation Team
MOLA building recording summary
10x architect’s drawings of Phase 1.1
2x plans of Phase 1 project
1x hogs hair and 1x pony hair conservation cleaning brushes
Information on show room environmental monitoring equipment
2012 one penny, 20 pence, five pence coin
Union Jack Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee flag

Mould mould everywhere!

Of the 310 paintings at Knole at least 80 have some level of mould on the surface. Although mould is present or suspected in all rooms, the worst appears to be in the Spangled Dressing room, the Billiard room, the Leicester Gallery and the Reynolds Room and is a direct result of the very poor environmental conditions.

Mould on the surface of the painting ‘Heraclitus’ in the Billiard Room

Mould penetrates the varnish and paint layers on paintings causing a white bloom on the surface, flaking paint and degradation of the canvas support. If left untreated this damage can become irreversible.

More mould on a portrait in Lady Betty’s China Closet

In order to plan how we improve the environment in the showrooms in the future and how we can conserve the paintings, we need to better understand this mould growth; why it appears on some paintings and not others and in some rooms and not others; what factors influence its growth; how can we conserve the paintings and ensure the mould doesn’t return.

‘Cimon and Iphigenia’ bt Sir Peter Lely in the Spangled Dressing Room

We have just started working with The Courtauld Institute of Art on a research project to investigate this mould problem. Six second year students are undertaking a full survey of environmental conditions in the showrooms, looking at data from the past and present to see how the current building works will affect the conditions.

Mould spores already growing in The Billiard Room…

…and in the Spangled Dressing Room, spores began to appear within 48 hours.

The Petri dishes will collect mould spores that can then be analysed and identified. Samples have also been taken from the surface of some paintings and again will be analysed and identified. This project will run for 1 year.

Siobhan

Eek! Only 15 days till we open

It’s been a while since our latest post about what we’ve been up, but we promise we have definitely been busy.  The last few weeks of the winter clean is always fairly hectic.  This year however added to te usual mayhem has been the deinstallation of internal protection work from the first phase of building work, plus preparations for the next phase.  We have also had various contractors and conservators in and out of the house.

The dust protection tunnel and hoarding has now come down in the Leicester Gallery, Museum Room, Billiard Room, Spangled Dressing Room and Spangled Bedroom.  This meant we could finally deep clean the rooms, and it’s a good job we had the protection because it turns out there was a fair amount of dust!

Volunteer Zena, gives the bay window of the Museum Room a thorough clean after the tunnel was taken down.

Our contractors dismantling the tunnel section in the Billiard Room.

With the tunnel  removed from the Billiard Room, it was time to move the Billiard Table back in to its usual place in the room.

The team re-hang net curtains and blackout curtains in the Billiard Room.

This image demonstrates perfectly the need for internal dust protection during building work.

The tunnel coming down revealed that an area of plaster ceiling in the bay window of the Spangled Dressing Room had become unstable.  With our building surveyor Robin and our contractor we discussed what approach should be taken to make it safe.

Some small bits of plaster had broken off altogether.

After investigation and discussion it was decided to remove the unstable are of plaster. It turned out to be a modern plaster skim…

…and not as much of the plaster needed to be removed as we first thought.

Earlier in the month we took a delivery of some parts of the James II Bed, including the headboard and and some curtains.  They have returned after several years of conservation work.  As they are very carefull packed and in quite large boxes we took the decision to store them in the Venetian Ambassador’s Bedroom.  The Headboard will be no display to visitors during the 2013 season.

Conserved parts of the James II bed have returned from the National Trust textile studio in Norfolk.

It took a whole day for the conservation Team with  two of our volunteers to move all the boxes from the Great Hall to the Venetian Ambassadors Bedroom.  There has been lots of other lifting and moving around of various objects in recent weeks.  Including two tapestries on 4.5 metre long tubes.  They came from Lady Betty’s Bedroom which is now empty for the building work and were stored in the Billiard Room last year.  As the Billiard Room has been re-instated we needed to find another temporary home for them.  It turns out they both fitted rather nicely under the refectory table in the Great Hall.

So where do you store two tapestries on 4.5 metre long tubes…? Under a table of course!

Cliveden Conservation have been back carrying out more work to the Great Hall and Great Stairs floors.

Wet paper towels are left overnight on recently repaired areas of grouting to help it set properly.  If it dries out to quickly the new grouting can fail. 

Toning in the new grouting to match the colours of the stone. 

This week CSC Window Films have been in working int he first half of the house, where windows have been repaired.  They apply a film to the windows that absorbs ultraviolet light out of sunlight coming in the windows.  It is very important to minimise or stop completely any UV coming in to the show rooms as it is the most damaging part of the light spectrum and especially harmful to our textile collection.  Light damage is cumulative and completely irreversible.

Applying new UV film to the windows. The Museum Room window has never had film on before as it has been behind a display cabinets since the 1960s!

More shifting and lifting about!  This time four large portraits needed hanging at the north end of the Leicester Gallery.  They had been taken down while the dust protection was up in front of the window.

The deep clean of rooms has now been finished, leaving two of the long galleries, the Billiard Room, Great Stairs and Spangled Rooms floors to be waxed and polished.  We have already started uncovering some of the rooms and putting the furniture back in to place.  Two more weeks to go and we’ll be open again.  Where did winter go?

Sarah, Lucy, Melinda and Emily

p.s it’s snowing AGAIN!