No different in 1889, to quote Jerome K Jerome from "Three men in a boat":

…"you don't mean to say you have covered over carved oak with blue wall-paper?"

"Yes," was the reply: "it was expensive work. Had to match-board it all over first, of course. But the room looks cheerful now. It was awful gloomy before."

Brian G

Well, I reckon it's quite a believable claim that whoever covered the paintings took some care to preserve them. Nero's decoration style could easily have been familiar to posh renaissance folk – and we all know that in our own age things that went out of fashion decades ago can come around again. So maybe the decorator guessed that the paintings might want uncovering again – but just got the interval a bit wrong.

Dr Anna Keay, who made the naive statement, is a writer, historian, and TV personality married to the former Chief Executive of English Heritage.

She should know better, but of course we're not surprised that she doesn't.

I suspect that part of the explanation for why she doesn't is that, like a lot of academics whose work brings them into contact with things, not just ideas, she probably has no first-hand experience whatsoever of doing any kind of skilled manual work, particularly for profit, and so cannot see the explanation for these painted panels being there that is right under her nose: the householder wanted a plaster wall, so the workmen just made one over the top of the original painted wood.

Did she ever ask herself why they would have done anything different? No, because she couldn't see things at all from the point of view of a tradesman.

A reaction that's as unfortunate as it's inexplicable.

To answer your question about why they didn't plaster direct on to the wood, I'm assuming that they chose to use laths in order to get a good bond. The laths stood away from the timber panelling so that plaster could push right through the laths and slightly into the space behind to get a good key.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 12/11/2021 16:26:56

All I know about this issue is what I've read here and via the links supplied.

You've attacked someone as naive who has presumably worked successfully in their field for some years and you've added an alleged backstory about their experience, or lack of.

Why challenge them from an unrelated space where they're unlikely to be aware of it, never mind be able to reply? That being so, how can anybody evaluate your challenge? And why should they?

I have something vaguely similar. The original house well is covered over at ground level leaving a tell tale circle of bricks with cement filling in the middle. Done probably when when the village got piped water in the '30s. So is it filled in completely to give a surface ready to cement render or is it timber joists slowly rotting under the cement? One day I do want to find out and restore the well for garden water if not potable.

Mick, in all seriousness, if you can facilitate a challenge from me to Anna Keay's comments in a related space, preferably the space where they are originally published (the Guardian and Smithsonian), I'd be pleased to avail myself of the opportunity.

In the meantime, presumably there is nothing to stop you, or any other concerned party, from drawing Anna Keay's attention to the current thread and allowing her to evaluate my challenge for herself. If she wishes, she is completely free to respond to it here. She will have the additional bonus of knowing that, unlike me in the case of her comments, she is challenging my comments in what no-one could accuse her of being an unrelated space.

Hopefully, you'll agree that the obstacles in the way of her doing this are considerably less insurmountable than the obstacles to me getting print room in the Guardian or Smithsonian.

I worked for a short time in a first-floor office in a small but attractive 18C town-house in Dorchester. The banisters were encased Barry Bucknell style, though probably not as elegantly, in painted hardboard, and I was told that it was in fact to preserve the original joinery, and would be reasonably easy to remove without damage.

Bazyle –

Have you tried drilling a small-diameter hole through the well covering to see if it breaks through into not-very-fresh-air? If it does you could lower a simple plumb-line to gauge the depth if the well has not been filled in.