Lots of cleaning…and scaffold developments!

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve carried out a deep clean in the Collections Store.  It’s long over due and needed, especially as we have a pest insect problem that has developed, despite the room being environmentally controlled.  Good housekeeping is the best way of preventing infestations developing.  Now the room has been reorganised and we are spending more time in there condition checking objects, it will be much easier for us to keep on top of the cleaning too.

Susie and Rob hard at work cleaning in the store.

The room needed a full deep clean from ceiling to floor.

Tom condition checking objects in the store this week.

Rob from Dyrham Park, a ‘Our Passport To Your Future’ programme trainee Conservation Assistant, spent 2 days with us last week as a part of his year’s training.  Here is a link to his blog he has written over the last year, including a post about his time with us at Knole http://robsblogdyrhamnationaltrust.wordpress.com/

On Tuesday this week we re-hung the Van Dyck of Sofonisba back in the Leicester Gallery.  She had spent time re-acclimatising in the Great Hall after returning from exhibition.

Melinda and Emily re-hang the Van Dyck

The chains the painting hangs from are not secured to the wall at the same height. The ring of the chain the right frame hook was on needed adjusting.

During the closed day clean of the show rooms we took the chance to get our tallest ladder out on the Great Stairs to clean dust from the highest windowsill.  It was a good time to look closely at some of the coloured glass and check the condition of the glass.

Emily cleaning the dust from a windowsill on the Great Stairs.

Beautiful coloured glass in the Great Stairs windows.

The scaffold for external building repairs has began to be built across the East and North fronts of the building over the last 2 weeks.  Soon the contractors will be here to remove cement rendering that is failing and apply lime wash render instead.  The windows will also be coming out to be repaired and re-fitted.  The scaffold is huge as it is going right up over the roof.

Scaffold going up on the East front

A new view from the Spangled Bedroom

A 90 tonne crane is coming next week to lift the giant scaffold beams for the roof.  The building of the scaffold is being captured on a time lapse camera, we’ll post the film when its completed.

Friday was a particularly busy, after the morning clean we had to set up for this months ‘Meet the Conservation Team’ event.  Cliveden Conservation also began remedial repairs to the Great Hall floor.  They began on the dais removing old grouting between the Purbeck Marble and then re-grouting it again.

Lucy vacuüm cleaning the upholstery of a stool from the Ballroom

Conservation work has begun on the Great Hall floor

In the evening we hosted a fundraiser garden party.  Although because of the weather it was held in the Orangery and some of the show rooms.  Melinda and Emily were demonstrating upholstery cleaning in the Reynolds Room and, showing guests our collection of pest insects.  As if on cue, just before the event began we had a heavy rain downpour and the window on the Second Painted Stairs leaked quite a bit, very real evidence of why we need to continue to raise funds towards our Inspired by Knole conservation project.

The leaky Second Painted Stairs window

Lucy, Sarah, Emily and Melinda.

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

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.

A Royal seal of approval

Today we were privileged to have a visit from the Prince of Wales.  He came to see the beginning of emergency building repair work.  Emma, our Curator, led the Prince of Wales around the show rooms after meeting Siobhan (Conservator) and Lucy in the Hall.    Siobhan demonstrated how we carry out condition reports on paintings and Lucy explained how handling objects can cause deterioration by showing the Prince of Wales our handling frames.

Our handling frames shows examples of physical damage to different types of materials

The Prince of Wales was then asked to sign our visitor book.

Prince Charles signed our visitor book, above it the future Edward VII signed one to when he visited in 1898

Today was not the first time a Prince of Wales has visited Knole.  The future Edward VII visited in 1898.

Photograph in 1898 visitors book

Signatures from everyone who visited in 1898

Melinda and I were working in the Reynolds Room treating an object for common furniture beetle infestation and vacuüm cleaning the upholstery on one of the chairs.  We spent about 5 minutes talking to the Prince about how we did this and showed him some of the dust we had cleaned from another chair and our examples of woodworm found from around the house.

Sarah was the ‘runner’, making sure all the show rooms were ready with blinds up and doors unlocked.  Having someone ‘behind the scenes’ is crucial to making sure all the hard work pays off and the everything goes as planned.

Melinda and I in the Reynolds Room working / waiting for Prince Charles

He was really interested in our work and our conservation project.  He spent about an hour and half he in total before taking off in his helicopter to his next appointment.

Thanks for visiting, come back soon!

The visit took more than a week to plan, and the Conservation Team had a prompt start this morning to get 2 days cleaning completed in 1 morning to make sure the show rooms were looking their best.

We hope the Prince of Wales will be able to make another visit when the project is really under-way.

Siobhan talks to HRH about condition assessing the portrait of Thomas Sackville

Emma and HRH in the Brown Gallery

Helen talks to HRH about our conservation project, in the Ballroom

Emma and HRH admiring the silver furniture in the Kink’s Bedroom

 

Emily, Sarah, Lucy and Melinda

First week of the 2012 season has been and gone!

Now we’re in the open season the work of the Conservation Team changes.  Our cleaning time is focused on the mornings before we open.  We’ll vacuüm the floors of the visitor route everyday and dust flat surfaces nearest to visitor route.  Every week on our closed days (Mondays and Tuesdays) we choose one or two rooms to have a thorough dust of the room and objects.

We’ve already had 3 school groups visit.  We plan our cleaning routine around the time they are in the show rooms so they can enjoy the house without the noise of our vacuums in the background.

On Monday the final touches to the dust screen for the building work were completed.  Visitors can come and see what we have done to protect the show rooms from dust and debris during the urgent exterior building conservation work.  You can walk through our special tunnel and see the builders at work on the outside (when they have started).

On Thursday Lucy and Sarah went to help at Owletts with their book cleaning…more on this to follow soon.  Melinda carried out the first of her monthly light reading spot checks around the house.  Using our light monitor, Melinda takes LUX (the unit we measure light by) and ultraviolet readings from the same selected locations in the show rooms.  We do this to compare the different light levels throughout the season, in addition to our annual light monitoring using blue wool dosimeters.  The monthly checks also help us maintain the correct blind levels in the show rooms, allowing enough light in for visitors to enjoy the rooms but not too much that irreversible damage will occur to the collection.

Friday was the first of our ‘Meet the Conservation Team’ events.  Melinda and Lucy demonstrated how we treat furniture for common furniture beetle ( ) infestations, and showed visitors our collection of pest insects that we have found in the show rooms.  We’ll be having a meet the team event once month (except August) during the season.  Check out our events page for more info.

Sarah, Lucy, Melinda, Lisa and Emily