Such naivety …

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I was delighted to see this on the Smithsonian channel this morning :

**LINK**

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gobsmacked-restorers-make-discovery-of-a-lifetime-at-medieval-manor-in-england-180979053/

But I can hardly stop smiling at the naivety of this statement:

Stanford posits that the historic estate’s 19th-century owners were trying to protect the Tudor artwork.

“Someone obviously realized that the paintings were things of wonder and beauty and deserved to be treated carefully and maybe one day somebody would come along and find them again,” she tells the Guardian. “That’s us.”

.

Reality-Check much needed !

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

Makes me think back to the 1950's when Barry Bucknall (remember him ?) the original TV DIY ' expert ' was covering everything – panelled doors, fireplaces etc with sheets of hardboard to get the ' modern ' look!

What goes around comes around as they say!

Regards. Mike

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

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

[egaParticipant @ega]

I shall have to re-read to find out which one of the three was the vandal!

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

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.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Mick B1 on 12/11/2021 15:01:12:

Well, I reckon it's quite a believable claim that whoever covered the paintings took some care to preserve them. […]
So maybe the decorator guessed that the paintings might want uncovering again – but just got the interval a bit wrong.

.

The interval AND the technique

MichaelG.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

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.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 12/11/2021 15:10:25:

 

….

The interval AND the technique

MichaelG.

Not really getting you there. From the video it looks like a layer of lath-and-plaster applied across studwork with an airspace between. I can see that the stud fastenings might do *some* damage, but how does that make nonsense of the claim?

Bill Phinn, I'm not getting you either. How would it be simpler to erect stud framework and a lath-and-plaster false wall than just plaster heavily over the paintings? It makes the room smaller too.

Even to bother to deliver insulting criticism on a subject fairly remote from the normal fare of this forum suggests a covert agenda at least some of the rest of us aren't party to.

 

Edited By Mick B1 on 12/11/2021 15:53:37

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Mick B1 on 12/11/2021 15:32:54:

[…]

Not really getting you there. From the video it looks like a layer of lath-and-plaster applied across studwork with an airspace between. I can see that the stud fastenings might do *some* damage, but how does that make nonsense of the claim?

.

To me it looks like nothing more [or less] than typical “jobbing builder” activity … I certainly find it difficult to believe that there was any deliberate attempt at conservation.

Let’s not argue about it though … I just found the ‘generous’ comment by Stanford rather amusing.

MichaelG.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Might make the room less drafty and warmer in the winter…

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

Posted by Mick B1 on 12/11/2021 15:32:54:

Even to bother to deliver insulting criticism on a subject fairly remote from the normal fare of this forum suggests a covert agenda at least some of the rest of us aren't party to.

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

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Bill –

You assume correctly. Plaster-and-lath work does work by the plaster extruding through the gaps and flowing slightly round onto the backs of the laths. My bedroom ceilings are of this construction (I think of Edwardian date).

The plaster was also sometimes re-inforced with horse-hair or similar.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Bill Phinn on 12/11/2021 16:17:37:

Posted by Mick B1 on 12/11/2021 15:32:54:

Even to bother to deliver insulting criticism on a subject fairly remote from the normal fare of this forum suggests a covert agenda at least some of the rest of us aren't party to.

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

…

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?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Oh dear … I really wish I hadn’t started this one

As it was about an unexpected find, hidden under later work … I thought it might prompt some amusing tales of what people found when they stripped-off the old paint, etc. from tools or clocks, or models

Instead … I appear to have triggered WWIII

MichaelG.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

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 B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 12/11/2021 17:09:11:

Oh dear … I really wish I hadn’t started this one

As it was about an unexpected find, hidden under later work … I thought it might prompt some amusing tales of what people found when they stripped-off the old paint, etc. from tools or clocks, or models

Instead … I appear to have triggered WWIII

MichaelG.

Hey! Don't worry about it! I just thought you and Bill were being a bit hard on whoever it was, that's all…

I don't have any tales to match, but the local steam railway asked me to take the movement out of an old station clock and repalce it with a GPO clock slave movement (actually not a real clock movement at all, but an electromechanical indexing mechanism attached to a clock face and hands – sorry, fingers).

When I looked at the movement I was supposed to remove, even though I know little about clocks it shrieked Victorian workmanship – perfectly blued taper pins holding it together, expertly hand-sawn and filed backplate, precise linked fuzee chain etc. There was a little and not very elegant 'W&H Sch" trademark on the backplate, and when I googled that I came to the conclusion it was a Winterhalder & Hofmaier from Schmaelenbach, possibly dating from before 1869. There could well be clock specialists on here who'll know a lot more – serial no. on backplate and fuzee drum was 40, btw.

I told the railway boss what prices I'd seen for similar on the bay, and told 'em I didn't wanna do the deed…

They soon found me another less significant clock which had already had a quartz movement put in – a much more suitable subject for the job.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

Posted by Mick B1 on 12/11/2021 16:55:02:

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?

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.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

Look at the ancient wall paintings found in recent years in churches, they weren't covered up to preserve them.

My mother used to like putting up wallpaper where ever we lived, and I remember all the rude words she wrote on the plaster for the benefit of the next generation of paper hangers.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

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.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

I'd like to add that the remarks Michael and myself have taken issue with are attributed to Caroline Stanford, as Michael states, not Anna Keay. It's quite possible that Anna Keay does not share Caroline Stanford's views.

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