A celebration of invisible work

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Clare Finn looks at how hundreds of years of royal heritage are being conserved

Historic Royal Palaces, the self-supporting charity that looks after five Royal Palaces – Hampton Court Palace, The Banqueting House, Kew Palace, Kensington Palace and the Tower of London – has launched a year to celebrate 100 years of conservation at the palaces. At the launch at the Banqueting House, Grayson Perry, champion of modern craftsmanship, spoke of being greatly impressed by conservators’ invisible work. For that is what good conservation is. If your eye is drawn to the conservator’s work before you see that of the original artist, craftsman or woman then in conservation terms it is not a job well done. Good conservation must first and foremost always allow the original work to shine through in all its subtlety and glory.

Resplendent in a dress we hope will be preserved for the future, Grayson gave a modern craftsman’s view. He mused on the ‘weirdly mystical science’ that concerns conservators, questioning whether one saw time as a craftsman adding patina, the fondness for things to look old, or was time a vandal destroying things. In such a digital age where the handmade is a strange and exotic thing, the only really handmade item in one’s house perhaps being the child’s drawing on the fridge, he admitted to thinking of himself as a ‘good enough’ craftsman. ‘If no one can see I have bodged it I will bodge it!’ But this he recognized would not do for conservators: no mean craftsmen or women themselves, they are all trained to postgraduate level. Grayson confessed to being deeply impressed by their strong commitment praising ‘the amazing care, knowledge and skill that goes into making objects “not change”’.

Historic Royal Palaces’ conservation story began in 1883 with a letter to The Times that decried the ‘deplorable condition’ of Hampton Court Palace’s tapestries and that there was no funding to stop this rot. By 1912 the public outcry led George V to decree that the William Morris Studios be entrusted with their care and Hampton Court’s tapestry workshop was set up.

Today much more is conserved, Mediaeval andbaroque wall and ceiling paintings, the great throne canopies and drapes for royal state beds, outdoor garden sculpture, thousands of items in the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, boxes of archaeological finds, more recent pieces such as Princess Diana’s dresses and objects made by the Boudicca design team from sheet metal for the ‘Enchanted Palace’ experience in Kensington Palace State Apartments. The team here runs the largest conservation programme in the UK; they keep decay at bay, or better still, defeat it.

The celebratory programme includes a continually updated blog with short stories from the Palaces’ conservators and scientists, and a free download with hundreds of expert tips on how to look after the treasures in your own home. It covers upholstery, books, glass, ceramics, wood and costume. The website discusses many related topics explaining what conservation is. The search for hidden stories reveals one about a stain on one of George III’s silk damask waistcoats, worn when he was ill with porphyria (a metabolic disorder now thought to be the cause of his severe mental problems). It brings us closer to him as an individual. That stain becomes part of the piece’s cultural value to be conserved.

Other topics on the website are: How is conservation different from restoration? How have previous restoration approaches been superseded by modern conservation techniques at the palaces? Prevention versus cure? What happens from day to day? What happens on a longer-term cycle?

Look out for the autumn series of lectures on the conservation of Mary of Modena’s bed, Terracotta Roundels, Conservation Science, Preventive conservation/conservation housekeeping, the Alexander tapestries,commissioned in the 1540s by Henry VIII for Hampton Court Palace’s Great Hall where they still hang,or Rubens’ ceiling in the Banqueting House, and one on Princess Charlotte's wedding dress

Above all, Conservation is an investment in our future.