National Trust - Cabinet Room conservation at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk

The Cabinet Room at Felbrigg Hall

We are delighted to have been part of this conservation project at Felbrigg. Please read the press release below for more information.

National Trust Press Release 

Immediate release: Friday 14 July 2023

One of the best examples of a Cabinet Room is conserved at

Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk

Restored to its former glory following a five-year conservation project, work in the

Cabinet Room at the National Trust’s Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk draws to a close with the

re-dressing of one exceptional window.

Situated at the end of an array of State Rooms that escalate in grandeur, restoration of

the Cabinet has included the cleaning and re-instating of paintings, wall hangings,

furniture and carpet. The ambitious project has culminated in the commission of replica

silk damask curtains to match the original set, which were first introduced to the room

around 1830 by Felbrigg’s then owner, Admiral Windham.

The room itself was originally the late 17 th century Drawing Room, which was square

and panelled, until the bay window was added in 1751. It was then that William

Windham II transformed this space into a Cabinet to display pictures and objects he had

collected on his European Grand Tour. In August 2018, work began to restore the room

to its former glory, today it is one of the last surviving and most complete Grand Tour

Cabinets to be found anywhere in England.

Senior Collections & House Manager, Louise Green, called upon an extensive list of

specialists to help The National Trust complete this conservation project, with the re-

dressing of the historic window overseen by Textile Historian, Annabel Westman. The

three-bay window had lain bare for many years, only its original gilt cornice box and

pelmet remaining.

The replica crimson silk damask was specially woven by Humphries Weaving Company

of Sudbury, Suffolk, based on the original curtain design. Nearly 100 metres of pure silk

gimp, which is an ornamental trim, was handmade by Brian Turner Trimmings to edge

the curtains, which were lined in crimson sateen and made up by specialist Lisa

Dawson. The firm Butler & Castell restored the gilt cornice box, whilst Collier Webb

conserved and reproduced the original curtain tie-backs. Finally, the silk pelmet

underwent conservation by textile conservator Melanie Leach, with additional gimp trim

woven by Clare Hedges and bullion fringe made by Heritage Trimmings.

Textile Conservator, Melanie Leach, said; “The pelmet was previously too short in width,

the pleats were uneven, and it looked rather tired. The addition of new replica silk

damask and replica trimmings has extended it to fit the window bay as it would have

when originally made. After 750 hours of conservation work in the studio, I feel very

relieved that it is up and hanging again.”

Melanie continued; “The reinstatement itself was quite the challenge due to the pelmet’s

size - the width being in one continuous piece over 6m when pleated up, and over 15m

when unpicked and laid out flat. After many trials I was pleased to find a way to bring

the unfaded silk damask to the fore to improve the overall appearance and refresh the

wonderful crimson colour of the silk. In addition, 15 metres of braid, bullion fringe and

113 bobble hangers have been painstakingly cleaned, supported and protected to

ensure the safe display of the pelmet for the future.”

Textile Historian, Annabel Westman, reveals that the window dressings were the final

piece of the jigsaw and complete the room; “The Cabinet Room is an outstanding

example of its type, with so many items made for the room still surviving. For too long

the curtains, which would have matched those in the adjoining Drawing Room, have

been missing to the detriment of the complete ensemble, but this project to conserve

and restore the window treatment has given the room a renewed sense of place within

this remarkable country house.”

General Manager, Ella Akinlade, added: “We’re delighted with the finished Cabinet

Room now that the windows have been so magnificently re-dressed for the first time in

many years. It is thanks to the help of our members and supporters that such important

conservation work can take place and we can’t wait to share this significant space, the

finale of a beautiful suite of rooms, with everyone.”

The National Trust’s Felbrigg Hall is open to visitors Saturday to Wednesday, increasing

to seven days a week from 22 July – 6 September, when you can see the fully restored

Cabinet Room for yourself.

For further press information please contact:  

Olivia Ivens on olivia.ivens@nationaltrust.org.uk or 07824 530 276

About Felbrigg Hall, Gardens and Estate  

One of the most elegant country houses in East Anglia, Felbrigg Hall is a place of

surprises and delights. It is a mixture of opulence and homeliness where each room

reflects Felbrigg’s vibrant history, from the stained-glass windows in the Great Hall to

Queen Mary's teapot in the Drawing Room. The Chinese Bedroom showcases

Felbrigg’s rich global collections, including luxury exports traded by the East India

Company, and the eclectic displays in the Cabinet Room show collections amassed on

a European ‘Grand Tour’.

Outside, the decorative and productive walled garden is a gardener's delight. Flowers

from the garden decorate the Hall, whilst allotments in the walled garden provide fruit

and vegetables for the Squire's Pantry tea room. The rolling landscape park with a lake,

211 hectares (520 acres) of woods and waymarked trails is a great place to explore

nature and wildlife on this bountiful estate.

About the National Trust 

The National Trust is a conservation charity founded in 1895 by three people: Octavia

Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley, who saw the importance of the

nation's heritage and open spaces and wanted to preserve them for everyone to enjoy.

Today, across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, we continue to look after places so

people and nature can thrive. 

The challenges of the coronavirus pandemic have shown this is more important than

ever. From finding fresh air and open skies to tracking a bee's flight to a flower; from

finding beauty in an exquisite painting or discovering the hidden history of a country

house nearby - the places we care for enrich people's lives. 

Entirely independent of Government, the National Trust looks after more than 250,000

hectares of countryside, 780 miles of coastline and 500 historic properties, gardens and

nature reserves. In 2021/22 we received 20 million visitors. The National Trust is for

everyone - we were founded for the benefit of the whole nation, and our 5.7 million

members and over 44,000 volunteers support our work to care for nature, beauty,

history for everyone, for ever.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT!

Amongst our current stock we have a piece of furniture that regularly inspires love at first sight … in a whole range of different customers!  But here’s the riddle: this piece is simple but remarkably complicated, of considerable age but also very much at home in the most contemporary of settings, made by an anonymous craftsman yet all the more desirable for that…

In fact it is a North Country low dresser of majestic proportions. A very simple design -  three drawers above squared legs - but given its distinctive character by the beautiful figuring and patination of the elmwood it is made from. The dresser dates from around the turn of the 17th Century but the craft and simplicity of its construction would give it pride of place in the most pared down of modern interiors;  and the value of its unknown maker lies in his obvious knowledge, love and understanding of the wood he has worked to make such an outstanding item of country-made English furniture - wood from one of the most beautiful of our English trees.

In Britain the elm is believed to have been introduced 2,000 years ago by the Romans, young saplings likely used as supports in vineyards.  From those  juvenile trees, elms spread throughout the country. A mature elm is a beautiful tree: tall, narrow, dark green and weightily branched with a straight trunk, once especially seen along field divisions and in hedgerows.  The height and stature of the elm trees imparted  a wonderful sense of scale in various parts of our gently undulating English landscape.  And they were a tree familiar to many:  the 18th Century poet Thomas Gray wrote of the  ‘rugged elms’ beside his country churchyard.  One hundred years later writing when domiciled in Florence,  Robert Browning recalled the elm:

Oh, to be in England Now that April's there And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now! Home Thoughts, from Abroad 1845

And many of the artists of the first half of the 20th century, aware of the changes wrought  by war and creeping urbanisation,  painted the elm tree, artists including Philip Wilson Steer, Gilbert Spencer, Winifred Nicholson, Eric Ravilious and many others.  Plantsman and painter Paul Nash loved the stand of tall elm trees on the boundary of his childhood garden in  Buckinghamshire: ‘Older than most of the surrounding trees, these dominating elms evoked a sense of the past with a powerful and haunting presence’ Modern Artist, Ancient Landscape www.tate.org.uk  

Elms have their drawbacks however, a startling and sometimes dangerous trait was that a tree could unexpectedly shed a large bough, even in calm weather.     Sir Henry Rider Haggard writing in November 1898 records:  “Today the weather is of the most perfect stillness and beauty … while we were at luncheon, suddenly, and without the smallest warning, a large piece fell off one of the great garden elms on to the path beneath.…it is this trick … that makes (elm trees) such dangerous timber to plant near houses.” A Farmer’s Year (1899)

Elms are also very susceptible to disease – and not just in recent years. Writing in 1938 Stephen Bone, the artist, bewailed their fate: “In thirty years or so they may all be gone for no one is planting elms now, and local authorities, alarmed at stories of disease and danger from falling limbs, are lopping and felling ferociously. It is a tragedy for the elm is one of the most beautiful of all trees and in spite of having been naturalised less than two thousand years ago is now the most English.“ Albion: An Artist’s Britain

Oak, fruitwood, ash and elm, these were the timbers used for most of the early furniture of England,  worked by local carpenters using what timber was available.  Elmwood was made into boxes, hanging cupboards, dough troughs, settles, dug out chairs carved out from a single length of trunk and simple boarded chests – amongst the furniture found on Henry VIII’s famous warship, the Mary Rose (sank 1545, salvaged 1982) is a boarded elm chest.

Elm does not decay when kept permanently wet so was often the timber of choice for water pipes and pumps. It also had many uses on the farm: “…especially for … work where strength was required, such as the division to stables, ever liable to a kick from a strong horse, the lining of mangers and cow-stalls, and the outside weather-boards of buildings…(Elm) could be used more extensively where the charm of natural unstained wood is desired… if systematically polished it will in time attain a rich tone.  I have seen the tops of refectory tables made of it to which age and polish have given a deep bloom, as of a ripe plum.” Walter Rose, The Village Carpenter 1937

And a timber used not just for refectory tables.  Dresser was a term long employed to describe a convenient piece of furniture whose function was as an area to serve and display food  (a kitchen dresser was a much more utilitarian creature).  The fashion for purpose-built formal dressers emerged towards the end of the 17th Century. Initially these low dressers had no superstructure, they were simply long side tables with drawers. Hence in a piece like our most beautiful and wonderful dresser, the craftsman has used the striking grain of elmwood as a mark of real quality and distinction.  Our dresser was almost certainly a most prized and prestigious piece, very possibly made from a tree felled within the demesne of the manor house or prosperous farmhouse where it first belonged.  

As a sad footnote but a footnote so relevant to current times, it has been estimated that Dutch elm disease - one of the most serious tree diseases in the world - has killed off around sixty million elm trees in Britain since the 1970s.  This sobering fact alone makes our dresser a most precious item of proper English furniture,  the quintessential celebration of English wood and English craftsmanship.

* * * * *.

A tree of majestic beauty … on a moonlit night, the elms have a grandeur peculiar to themselves

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO WATER GILDING TECHNIQUES AND MATERIALS IN RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION

Carving and gilding may be a practice of which you are not completely familiar. The two crafts are often mentioned together but they are separate disciplines, which take a great deal of practice and discipline to execute well.

The practice of gilding is not new and evidence of the technique can be dated back to around 2300 BC whereupon gold leaf had been used to decorate both wooden and metal items in the Egyptian tombs. This is not to be confused with earlier techniques of gold metalwork and it should be noted that the practice of gilding may stretch back beyond this date.

Why did people gild? To simulate the appearance of solid gold. It is obviously so much more efficient and cost-effective to produce a gold surface using a thin layer of gold leaf. Gold leaf was originally manufactured by hand. Skilled artisans would beat the gold from a solid piece into a leaf. Modern techniques have surpassed this whereby the gold is melted to produce bars. These are passed through a series of rollers until a thin gold foil ribbon is produced. The gold ribbon is then cut into squares which are put between lightly dusted paper sheets. These sheets are then subjected to two beating processes using special calfskin hammers before being checked, cut into usable sized sheets and packaged into books of gold between sheets of paper covered in a dusting of rouge.

It is also important at this point to outline the three different commonly used techniques of gilding; these being water and oil gilding or the use of transfer leaf.

In the rest of this article, we are going to concentrate on water gilding as this is our most commonly used technique in restoration and conservation at Butler and Castell.

When water gilding antique furniture there are several processes required before laying gold leaf. It is imperative that the surface to be worked on is cleaned thoroughly and stabilised before applying gesso and bole. For every process leading up to the laying of the gold, it must be executed cleanly and with exacting standards to avoid any problems when gilding or finishing.

It is difficult to demonstrate exact processes in this article without going into great depth but in brief, the preparation of the surface for gilding entails the use of a rabbit skin sized base for the gesso, yellow ochre, and bole which are the three water based mediums used to prepare a surface for gilding. The gesso which is applied to the wood and built up over several applications. This is to a depth which provides a surface which can be sandpapered and then into which fine gesso cut detail can be cut using carving tools, before papering with very fine-grit sandpaper to remove any imperfections.

The next process is the application of a thin yellow ochre sealing coat which slows the absorption of water into the gesso whilst gilding. Finally, we apply the goldsize or bole which is a clay based paint. This is sandpapered and polished using fine polishing paper and bristle brushes to create a smooth and buffed surface, on to which the gold leaf will be laid.

The tools that a gilder uses to lay gold leaf are very simple. These consist of a Cushion, a knife, a gilders tip and brushes for dabbing the gold and applying gilding water or oil-based varnish. To briefly explain the gilder stores and cuts the gold leaf they are using on the cushion, the knife is used to cut the gold to a usable size. The gilder’s tip is a fine-haired, flat brush which is used to lay the gold leaf onto the surface to be gilded. Brushes are required to both wet the surface to be gilded and to dab the gold as it adheres to the surface.

The surface is wetted using gilding water, basically size and water, then the gold leaf is applied. As the water is absorbed into the gesso through the clay and the yellow ochre the gold adheres to this surface. The art of good gilding requires perfect timing, cleanliness and handling of the gold.

Once the gold has been laid and it has had time to dry the gilder burnishes highlights using burnishing stones. These are polished agate stones of various shapes and sizes which when used correctly leave a solid, bright burnished surface. The contrasting matt and burnished areas of gold enhance the beauty of a gilded object.

Once gilded and depending on the individual project the gilder will use further techniques to distress and tone the gold or blend or match the gilded repairs into the original surface.

REEPHAM CLASSIC CAR FESTIVAL

We are looking forward to the 2019 Reepham classic car festival which takes place on Sunday 29th October. Reepham Market place is given over to an array of classic cars and bikes. This year the main theme is the eccentric and innovative design of French cars. The event takes place from 11am to 4pm and there is plenty of places to park, eat and drink around the venue.

Reepham Antiques showroom will be open from 11am to 3pm on the day of the classic car show. Please come and join us on the day where you can browse and shop for fine art, antiques, glassware and many other objects.

About Butler & Castell

Butler and Castell opened the door to our Reepham workshop in 2001. Since this date, we have had the privilege to carry out work on some of the most collectable pieces of furniture in the world. We pride ourselves on our attention to detail and need to preserve and conserve the pieces of furniture that we work on. In this section, we will post case studies and article about projects, advice and events surrounding our business.

We look forward to sharing our story with you.

Why Buy Antiques

Furniture, there are so many styles and fashions. Many modern functional pieces at affordable prices so why buy antiques? There are several good reasons and probably many more than we will mention here but below are a few to consider.

Historical value

Antique furniture carries a story and in many cases fascinating stories. From conception to the placement you can learn about the furniture makers drawings, the use of materials, tools even the workshops that a piece of furniture was manufactured in. The individual or family that commissioned the piece and the property it resided in. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be derived from learning the provenance of a piece.

The Hunt

Many buyers and collectors enjoy researching catalogues or browsing shops and auctions to find their desired antiques. Investing your time in the pursuit of something individual and meaningful brings a great deal of satisfaction. Who knows what you may stumble across in your search!

Practicality

Antique furniture is environmentally sustainable. In a time where we are being asked to reduce depletion of the earth’s resources, we have an opportunity to act responsibly while buying something unique and valuable.

This aside a great deal of antique furniture is incredibly practical to use in our day to day lives whether in our homes or offices.

Why Reepham is a great place to visit.

Reepham is one of Norfolk’s lesser-known gems. The town is set around an attractive Georgian market place with the Dial house hotel and restaurant and the Chimes B&B. Eat and drink at the Kings Arms public house and a couple of other eateries including V’s cafe and Diane’s pantry. There are several Norfolk antique dealers and art outlets besides Reepham Antiques including Bonhams, East Anglian office.

Other attractions in the surrounding area include the fabulous walks around Marriots way and the Wensum valley, Whitwell Station and historic houses including nearby Blickling Hall. The fabulous north Norfolk coast is forty minutes away and Norwich city centre thirty minutes away. This is an ideal centre for a relaxing break and locally there are several golf courses, fisheries, nature reserves and cycling trails.

Most importantly please come and visit us at Reepham antiques showroom!