State Withdrawing Room | View from my attic

Recently we had even more of our rush matting replaced, this time in the State Withdrawing Room.

The New Matting

This room houses some of our finest pieces of carved wooden furniture, including the beautiful Sea Dog Table that visitors can walk all the way round. This does however cause extra wear on our floors, and the tape patches here have been getting more and more extensive.

The deconstructed Table

Before we could remove the old matting we had to move most of the furniture in the room, including said Sea Dog Table, which breaks down into 17 separate pieces. We moved the pieces into the Green Velvet Bedroom and lay them out on the floor there. Visitors were really interested in seeing it deconstructed so we have now put a photo out in the room.

One of the Sea Dogs

The same company who did the High Great Chamber for us came back for a (long) day with three rolls of brand new matting to install! Here is a link to the company we use: http://www.rushmatters.co.uk

Clearing the old matting

We removed the old matting in two pieces and had three rolls of brand new dancing to replace them. As well as the new matting in the center we decided to turn the piece of matting to the side of this, so that the least worn edge could be sewn to the new matting strips. This meant moving an awful lot of furniture but will hopefully be worth it in the long run.

Sewing the new matting

Turning the rush matting is something we can do to try to help a piece last as long as possible, moving worn pieces from the areas that get the most wear. Now our beautiful Sea Dog Table is framed by nice new matting that will hopefully last for many more feet to come!

The room renewed

Well sort of closed, for a little while . . .

So it is finally the ‘Closed Season’ at Hardwick Hall. Traditionally this would have been the time when the house could be cleaned from top to bottom and then ‘put to bed’. However for us, we’re open again in December, for Christmas and more then doing the Deep Annual Clean we also have a few little projects planned. Projects which include laying new matting in the High Great Chamber and getting trained by the NT textile conservators on how to clean some of the larger textile objects in our collection.

The High Great Chamber

This week we have mostly been getting ready for our up-coming projects, and starting our Deep Clean. We started by emptying the High Great Chamber of everything we could carry, and covering the rest with dust sheets.

The covered canopy

This meant we got to build the scaffolding tower not once but twice! I really enjoy building scaffolding because we get to all work together as a team, and we always have a laugh together! Before we covered the scaffold we had to clean the top of it, and it really needed it!

Before cleaning

Mid-clean

After we had moved all the furniture out then we cleaned to cornice around the top of the room from the scaffold. Actually cleaning the cornice doesn’t take that long, but moving the scaffold what feel like every five minutes takes up the time. Every time the scaffold tower is moved it has to be re-leveled, which on our less than flat floor definitely needs doing! I think I was up and down that scaffolding about 20 times!

The scaffold tower in the High Great Chamber

After finishing the cornice I moved on top deep cleaning some of the amazing pieces of furniture that live in the State Withdrawing Room. I dusted the Sea Dog Table and the Spice Cabinet, both pieces are believed to have been gifts to Bess from Mary Queen of Scotts.

This is believed to be the case because both pieces are of royal quality. To dust our furniture during the deep clean we use different types of brushes, so on these partially gilded pieces of furniture I used two types of paint brushes. We use hog’s hair paint brushed on the main pieces of carved wood, and a softer pony hair brush on the gilded wood. this is to help preserve the gilt as much as possible.

One of the Sea Dogs

This also means we get a chance to look inside the objects we are cleaning, like opening all the doors inside the beautiful spice cabinet! I was told that originally it was lined with silk inside, and must have looked stunning!

The Cabinet open

While I was cleaning some of the wooden furniture the other Chaps were turning their attention to the Farthingale stools from the High Great Chamber. Because of the delicate embroidery on the top of these stools we have to clean them very carefully. We use one of our adjustable suction Museum Vacs and a fine tool, and clean the piece through net to avoid pulling up any fibers.