A hidden puzzle

Paul, our Head Gardener was proudly clutching a chunk of iron work at our team meeting this week and we all wondered what it could be…

Thanks to more digging on site to prepare the ground for scaffolding foundations we’ve discovered some of the pieces of the old elaborate glass house which used to be located right next to the house. The ironwork that Paul was so pleased to find is in fact part of one of the building's iron pillars. We have always known it existed but had never found any real evidence of the structure or known how it was demolished so it's really great news that we've found some.

An old photo from 'Country Life' showing the impressive conservatory as it used to be - the whole structure was 80 feet long and 50 feet wide

In the trench we found pieces of glass, ironwork and even colourful Minton tiles, which would have decorated the floor.

Fragments of glass and Minton tiles

An old family photo of a fancy dress party in the conservatory - you can just make out the beautiful flooring

The glass is interesting - it’s green in colour and we know, from an article written in The Builder, 1866 that it was from a recipe of the late Sir W Hooker made especially for the Palm house at Kew. Apparently it wasn’t a great recipe though as it was designed to stop plants scorching but actually prevented the plants from growing properly!

Can't wait to see what else we find…

Persistent Pests

Persistent Pests Pester Peoples’ Museum... that’s the strapline a group of students from St Katharine’s School have come up with to describe a recent project they have been working on with us here at Tyntesfield. The students have written their own summary of the project for this blog…

A group of children from St Katherines School are involved with the National Trust at Tyntesfield and the Find Your Talent project.

They’ve been researching pests, conservation and scientific techniques which help stop pests and conserve museums such as Tyntesfield and the V & A museum in London. To help them on this journey of learning they have had visits from scientists, an entomologist, trap experts, media managers and many other specialists.

Learning a bit of theory in the classroom...

They went behind the scenes at the V & A Museum learning from the experts along the way. They even got to go inside their labs and see their special x-ray room. They also had a guided tour of Tyntesfield and learnt about the history of the house as well as the big restoration project.

Students from St Katharine's school outside Tyntesfield

Recently, they have had a session with the entomologist studying and identifying insects from the traps from Tyntesfield and some from Bristol museums. They then had a marketing expert in to teach them how to publish their learning journey.

Their next steps will be to go back to Tyntesfield and plan their presentation on what they have learned to share with their peers and stakeholders.

The best volunteering job...

One of our volunteers, Alan Kempton wanted to share why he thinks being an inventory volunteer is the best volunteering job in the National Trust. Over to you Alan...

Apart from the interest in the incredible variety of objects we get to deal with, the other volunteers are all very friendly and Pat keeps us amused with her jokes. Ruth, our Manager, is always very supportive and helpful and I am always amazed at her encyclopaedic knowledge of the collection and where items are located. We also have an endless supply of biscuits!

This week completes my third year on the Inventory Team. Over that time I have worked from top to bottom ( the Tower Room to the cellars ) and North to South on the Estate ( Home Farm to the Kitchen Garden ) helping to carry out the inventory on an amazingly diverse range of items. This week we were inventorying items from the Butlers Pantry.

Some of the items this week were:-

- Page from a 1935 copy of the Sunday Pictorial.
- Circular letter from Conservative Central Office dated 1947 asking for contributions to a Fighting Fund.
- Wooden coat hangers with inscribed in biro with H. Gibbs.
- Various radiator keys.
- A winding handle. This leads to a general debate about what it might have been used for. Suggestion that it might have been used to open the blinds in the drawing room, so go with Ruth to check. Pass through the Hall, now completely filled with scaffolding into the Drawing Room. The furniture is all pushed against the walls so we able to go right to the bay window at the far end, where I have never been before, and see the horizontal blinds and their elaborate mechanism carefully concealed behind a folding piece of wooden moulding. The handle doesn’t fit, but we find another one which does, but we don’t dare to try the mechanism to see if it works!

Butter fingers' nightmare

Laura from our House Team gives the lowdown on a day's hard work...

Today was a busy day. No need to go to the gym this week! Due to the impending work that is happening in the hall to stabilise the stencilling on the walls, we needed to remove some of the paintings. This is not the easiest of jobs to do!

We had the help of paintings conservators Bush and Berry to take down amongst others, the portraits of William Gibbs, Via Gibbs, George Gibbs and the very large St Laurence. In order to reach these paintings, we needed to put up scaffolding on the stairs and landing. This in itself is a challenge.

We need a good head for heights and a steady hand!

Once we had the scaffolding in place we had to have people to support the top of the paintings and people to support and take the weight at the bottom, and others to place in foam underneath when we needed to rest the paintings down. Getting up close and personal to these portraits is wonderful, looking at the detail and being able to appreciate them from a new angle. Via and George’s portraits were actually the heaviest of the lot, as the frames are solid.

A sense of relief as the paintings are removed to ground level.

It is very handy having joiners around, to build a bespoke A-frame for the paintings to be supported by. We also have a few extra bodies to help move the paintings to their support location, which can be a tricky task as these paintings have heavy, gilded frames. Via and George are now happily resting side by side together in the Ante Room, along with William Gibbs and others.

Fern admiring George and Via up close

Meeting the builders

Tyntesfield was a hub of activity on Sunday as over 1200 visitors came to enjoy our “Meet the Builders” Construction Skills Day – and what a day! There was a really terrific atmosphere as visitors got up close to our impressive conservation project and chatted to all our enthusiastic contractors. Special tours of the scaffolding and getting to climb on the diggers proved extremely popular as well as getting hands on chipping bath stone with the stone masons and playing around with plumbing pipes!

Having a go at stone masonry

We have very creative plumbers!

One of our joiners Paul with his son Blaine

We were helping to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the HLF and trustee Doug Hulyer cam along to enjoy the festivities. Tim, our Senior Building Surveyor, gave a talk to a packed Sawmill Centre in the afternoon on the current conservation work taking place on the main house.

New one-off tours took place up the scaffolding

..and Mark Moore, our site manager created a demonstration roof especially for the day!

The day was so succesful, with a great atmostphere and loads of positive feedback, that we've planned the next one already! Put it in your diaries - Sat 8 May 2010.