My father David Perry, Richard Lithgow and I all started out working for the Eve Baker Trust, a conservation firm began by Eve Baker and her husband Professor Robert Baker in the 1950s.听 We began the Perry Lithgow Partnership in 1983 when we decided we needed to take wall painting conservation in a more professional direction.听 We wanted to improve certain techniques, embrace different materials, and to foster closer relationships with other conservation professionals; all of which working with the Bakers constrained.

It was a steep 鈥� but very liberating 鈥� learning curve to suddenly be in the position of making one51茶馆儿 own choices and building relationships with clients and architects, with all the added responsibility that that includes.听 In addition, through the nascent UKIC¹ and attendance at lectures, case study days, etc, we had for the first time the opportunity to meet our fellow conservators, exchange ideas and contacts, and also, more importantly, to work with many of them.

Working for yourself brings many challenges: practical, financial, theoretical, administrative, and I have been extremely fortunate in having two business partners that were highly skilled in these departments, meaning that we were always able to complement and provide good support for one another.听 As the saying goes; 鈥榓 problem shared is a problem halved鈥�.听 After over forty years in business, the last year has shown me just how important that is in our profession, particularly for those of us in private practice.

When starting up the partnership, one of the areas we most wanted to improve upon was our approach to documentation.听 Whilst the significance of keeping good records was recognised, the expectations of what is appropriate have changed since the Bakers鈥� time in the 1950s to the 1980s.听 This was partly in response to technology 鈥� the use of computers and digital cameras rather than pen, paper and black and white photography 鈥� as well as developing standards, as exemplified by Sharon Cather, David Park and the Courtauld course, all of which began to so significantly influence our profession.

I should add that it is important to acknowledge that the Bakers were pioneers of a conservation-based approach to wall paintings, and that they prioritised the practical side over writing about it, especially 鈥� as was often the case 鈥� if resources were stretched.听 Something I am sure many of us can sympathise with. However, such detailed recording of conservation projects had been virtually non-existent under the Eve Baker Trust, as the paucity of their archive, which myself and Katy as Trustees hold, attests.

The lack of all that unique and potentially useful information acquired by the Bakers over so many years is regrettable. We still get regular requests for information about historic Baker projects from other conservators, architects etc., almost all of which we are sadly unable to help with, being able to provide only very limited records, if at all.听 We were fortunate in that my father was able to fill in many gaps with his verbal recollections of his time working with the Bakers, as were Richard and I to a lesser extent.听 But this is not necessarily always a reliable way to collect valuable information, although verbal testimony undoubtedly has its place. For example, written 鈥� and even photographic 鈥� documentation does not always include useful descriptions of how treatments are actually carried out; the equipment used; problems encountered and how they were resolved.听 I still regret not asking my father more about his time working with the Bakers, as this information is now lost.

To illustrate the difference between the way we capture information compared to our previous employers: in our archive storage space there is one filing cabinet of Trust job files and five PLP cabinets just for hard copy files.听 This doesn鈥檛 include all our separate reports for major multi-phase projects, such as Peterborough Cathedral 鈥� which has 20 hard copy reports alone 鈥� numerous boxes of photographs and slides, or all our digital files, for works completed over the last 42 years.听 In total we have worked on well over 300 different projects since 1983, generating a vast amount of information.

It is important to understand however, that it is of course, not the quantity, but the quality of the documentation produced, and how it must be fit for purpose.听 One of our focuses has been on creating condition graphics that inform both the conservator and the client or funding bodies of the extent of a particular conservation issue.听 They serve as a visual reference and a source of information for any future investigations and/or remedial interventions. They can also be used to produce interpretation material for visitors, who 鈥� 听despite our enthusiastic responses 鈥� unsurprisingly often struggle to appreciate the finer details of a wall painting that is perhaps only 30-40% extant.听 I am sure we have all had those conversations.

In our early 2000s project to conserve the nave ceiling at Peterborough Cathedral this was possibly taken to its extreme, where for example every detail 鈥� however seemingly irrelevant at the time 鈥� was recorded: the emphasis being on the collection rather than the display of information.听 This included things like identifying, counting and categorising every single nail and screw on the nave ceiling.听 A thankless and neck-breaking task at the time, but one considered important for this unique opportunity for full access to the underside of the ceiling. While a considerable amount of the collected data is available in written and graphic formats; only a small selection was presented in the final publication.听 All additional data has been archived as source material and is therefore available for future research.

There is also, of course, the perennial issue of the clients鈥� willingness to pay for detailed documentation, versus the actual time one spends on producing it.听 I am sure that all those here in private practice consistently undercharge for the production of survey and treatment records, simply because to charge realistically is perceived as making them less competitive.听 Despite this, our consciences do not allow us to compromise on the quality of the documentation, as we understand the value of it for future conservators and custodians; meaning that we effectively subsidise this element of the work.

It is therefore an essential part of our job to impress upon and explain to the client the importance of a certain level of detailed documentation at the outset of every conservation project, perhaps using examples of previous reports as illustrations.听 And, to be fair, in recent years I have noticed 鈥� across the board, whether public, institutional or private clients 鈥� a better understanding and appreciation of the value of good conservation documentation, and the fact that this needs to be charged at a realistic rate.

The necessity and importance of leaving a trail for future conservators, especially if you are in private practice, is something that has underpinned our approach to documentation throughout our careers.听 Having known David Park for many years 鈥� and in fact worked with him for the Bakers at Barton church in the late 1970s, when he briefly dipped a toe into practical conservation 鈥� we were delighted to be able to collaborate on several practical projects with the Courtauld students, and to regularly contribute our various reports to the National Wall Paintings Survey archive.听 Just as importantly, we have been able to use it as a valuable source of information when preparing our own surveys.

However, the elephant in the room that I, and many others in private practice 鈥� several of whom will be in this room 鈥� now face, is what to do with all this information 鈥� both hard copy and digital 鈥� once we retire.听 Needless to say, as the clock is ticking, I would welcome any suggestions and preferably offers 听of a good home for our archives that will still allow full access for research.听 I, and of course Richard, would very much like to think that we can, in this way, continue contributing to the development of conservation into the future.

¹ In 2005, the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation (founded in 1977), was incorporated into The Institute for Conservation (Icon).

If we summarise and compare their physical histories, we see that they are very similar. Their paintings were uncovered in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, a process of exposure that was usually brutal, resulting in much loss of original paint layers. Immediately afterwards, 鈥榩reservative鈥� coatings were applied. In the case of Kempley, this included waterglass, egg white and shellac varnish; at Little Hampden, a wax-based formulation was used. In the mid-twentieth century, recognition of defects associated with such treatments 鈥� most seriously, the weakening and exfoliation of original plaster and painting layers due to inhibited moisture and salts 51茶馆儿 behind the coatings 鈥� brought about a radical change in conservation practice. Between the 1950s and 1980s, efforts focused on their reduction and removal, as witnessed at both Kempley and Little Hampden.

While well motivated, these interventions were not done with the best treatment materials and procedures, and understanding of original painting technologies was poor. This is not a criticism but a statement of fact. Both the range of available cleaning materials and knowledge of their properties have increased immensely in the last half century or more, while the sophistication of original paint materials 鈥� and their vulnerability to treatment interventions 鈥� has been recognised by advances in scientific analysis.

What is the legacy of the physical histories that occurred at Kempley and Little Hampden, which are also broadly replicated at many other painted churches? A defining feature is that our medieval paintings largely exist in highly depleted states, their materiality irretrievably compromised and weakened. They are still affected by the presence of coatings, either because many paintings were never cleaned or because past cleaning attempts left residual materials behind. In short, they survive in exiguous condition and their continuing deterioration relating to added materials remains a concern (Figures 3 to 4).

The recognition of the harm caused by 鈥榩reservative鈥� coatings was a watershed moment in conservation practice, a rare occasion when failure was publicly acknowledged and an alternative course of action implemented. But this also created its own unwanted legacy, that coatings should always be equated with causing further deterioration and must be removed. This is a simplistic and dangerous assumption that does not stand up to scrutiny, as an examination of the circumstances at Kempley and Little Hampden demonstrates.

First, Little Hampden. Starting with the archival evidence, there is confusion as to the nature of the coating, with a SPAB report of 1908 identifying it as 鈥榓 solution of refined size applied hot with a spray diffuser鈥�, and an account in the Records of Buckinghamshire in 1967 stating that the paintings were 鈥榙e-waxed鈥�. Instrumental analysis was essential to clarify the archival ambiguity. We are grateful to Dr Joshua A. Hill, formerly of Nottingham Trent University, Department of Chemistry and Forensics, for undertaking FTIR microscopy and x-ray diffraction and identifying a bees-wax coating.

In defining conservation options, it is obviously critical to know which added materials are present, and in most cases, archival evidence will provide the answer to this. Little Hampden is a relatively rare exception where this is not so. It is just as important to characterise the physical nature of added materials and their interaction with original materials, as it is these features that usually determine whether remedial interventions are feasible and safe to undertake. We can use readily accessible and highly informative tools to do this, such as UV imaging and portable microscopy (Figure 5). At Little Hampden, these techniques reveal the coating as a thinly brushed application, now fragmented and discontinuous in its covering. It has not curled and deformed into individual flakes, and it has a grey discolouration. Knowing these features begins to enhance understanding of our 鈥榩roblem鈥�.

A 鈥榩roblem鈥� in conservation is only so if it contributes to active deterioration and paint loss. At Little Hampden, archival images provide irrefutable evidence of alarming paint loss between 1906 and the present day (Figure 6). Why is this happening? Wax coatings do not cause such problems in isolation. In common with other painted churches 鈥� though by no means all 鈥� there is salt contamination at Little Hampden, which in combination with an unstable environment promotes exfoliation of the coating, removing with it the painting. We therefore need to find out which types of salts are present, where they are 鈥� both topographically and in depth 鈥� and how they got there. We cannot define the constraints and possibilities of the available conservation options without this information.

But these are demanding questions. Understanding the nature and 51茶馆儿 of salts in wall paintings is a specialist discipline. Identifying salt species requires scientific expertise and instrumental analysis. All this is usually unavailable to the conservator in the field. Moreover, even with the best expertise, we can never know everything there is to know about salts in a porous system. So, the question needs to be rephased: exactly how much (and which) information is required to make informed decisions? We only need sufficient knowledge to address our principal concerns well. Recognising, understanding and interpreting levels of 鈥榮ufficient knowledge鈥� depends on critical judgement. But assuming that this is what a wall painting conservator should be good at 鈥� and this is a big assumption 鈥� we can generally gain an adequate understanding of the salt problems that confront us almost daily by undertaking simple testing of soluble ions and following a carefully designed sampling strategy.

To answer the question of where the salts are at Little Hampden, samples of accumulated, loose materials (dust, salt efflorescence) were collected from representative locations on the surface of the paintings. They provide information about topographic salt distribution. In addition, small core samples taken at increments to a depth of 4cms reveal the distribution of salts inside the plaster. Qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis using Quantofix庐 testing strips for detecting sulfate, chloride and nitrate ions tells us that our predominant ions are sulfates. Most revealingly, they are found in unusually high quantities on the surface of the painting, but they are not present within the plaster.

This crucial information helps to diagnose the nature of our salt 鈥榩roblem鈥�: we have identified surface contamination only. The physical history suggests that the most likely source is sulfur dioxide contamination from coal- or coke-fired heating used in the early-twentieth century shortly after the paintings were uncovered. As an airborne pollutant, sulfur dioxide can be deposited and become fixed on the calcium carbonate support 鈥� either wet (as calcium sulfite) or dry 鈥� and convert to calcium sulfate (gypsum), one of the most damaging salts for wall paintings.

Having identified both the nature of our 鈥榩roblem鈥� and its causes, what should we do next? Environmental monitoring, another essential component in the process of focusing conservation requirements at Little Hampden, demonstrates the unstable climate conditions that drive damaging cycles of salt crystallisation and deliquescence. As the building envelope is highly permeable to frequent and rapid changes with the exterior climate, damaging fluctuations of temperature and humidity occur on the interior, which are exacerbated by intermittent heating. Measures to prevent or reduce these destabilising parameters can 鈥� and must 鈥� be implemented as our first and most effective conservation response.

What about remedial treatment: does it also have a role here? We use the findings of our investigations to address three fundamental concerns: is treatment necessary, feasible and safe? Fundamental 鈥� but surprisingly often ignored. Environmental improvements at Little Hampden will not entirely stabilise the climate activation mechanisms of deterioration. But the discovery that damaging salts are only superficially present on the painting highlights the possibility that they can be substantially removed. In combination with climate improvements, salt removal will go a long way to preventing deterioration. We next need to ascertain whether cleaning is both feasible and safe.

Treatment design is not a 鈥榦ne size fits all鈥� undertaking. It is also a process of defining choices and focusing aims and requirements. At Little Hampden, the discontinuous nature of the coating and its thin application, and the vulnerable nature of the original paint materials, are considerations that influence the constraints and requisites of any proposed treatment. For our specific conditions, we need a cleaning methodology that offers control and limits direct action on the exiguous painting, and because we have a problem of salts existing in combination with a wax coating, it is necessary to identify procedures that address both simultaneously. A solvent dispersed in an aqueous gel controls contact and minimises mechanical action on the painting; it also targets both the coating and the salts. As in other stages of the conservation process, we can use procedures such as UV imaging and portable microscopy as surveillance tools to assess treatment outcomes (e.g. degree of coating removal, avoidance of damage to the painting) and soluble ion analysis to check for salt reduction after cleaning (Figure 7).

Two important points emerge from the approach to 鈥榩roblem-solving鈥� at Little Hampden. First, although a remedial treatment component was eventually recognised, this was not a pre-determined decision; it was a judgement reached after a process of data acquisition and evaluation. Neither was it the only or most important outcome, as the success of the remedial intervention also depends on making identified environmental improvements. The issues associated with the 鈥榩reservative鈥� coating in this case are not unusual 鈥� they are typical. As such, the stages of research, investigation, analysis and monitoring that were followed here should also be considered normal and expected generally.

This brings us to the second point. Aside from the instrumental analysis required to identify the wax coating at Little Hampden 鈥� which may be considered a relatively rare need 鈥� all the other stages of information gathering were carried using inexpensive, low-tech equipment: an adapted SLR digital camera and flashes to take UV images; an affordable portable microscope, able to capture astonishingly informative magnified images easily; simple test strips for detecting soluble ions; and straightforward environmental monitoring devices that do not require expensive know-how to install and maintain (Figure 8). This is not to say that higher-end technologies and outside expertise are not sometimes useful or required: they drive innovation and improve standards, which are also needed. But at most wall painting sites, our responses must be proportionate in their use of resources 鈥� of time, personnel, equipment, knowledge and expenditure.

Above all, since diagnosis of wall paintings is an integrated process of information gathering and assimilation, it is a task best determined and undertaken by the practicing conservator, the person who has 鈥� or should have 鈥� an intimate knowledge of the object and its problems. 鈥楤etter鈥� forms of recording, investigation and monitoring are of little or no use if no real attempt is made to link them to the problems we are meant to solve, and it doesn鈥檛 take much for this to happen, even in the hands of some who consider themselves heritage and conservation professionals. Analysis of materials, technical imaging and environmental monitoring can easily become ends in themselves, disengaged from core conservation problems and requirements, which can remain unrecognised and unacknowledged. Our challenge is to expand and improve the remit and capabilities of the practicing conservator, rather than outsourcing untethered 鈥榚xpertise鈥� to others.

What about Kempley: is remedial treatment here also necessary, feasible and safe? The sequential stages of this question are intentional: if treatment is not necessary, that51茶馆儿 all we need to know. To convincingly answer this question, however, again involves a rigorous process of data collection and evaluation. As already described, Kempley51茶馆儿 wall paintings are, like Little Hampden51茶馆儿, critically undermined by historic coating materials (Figure 9). But there are also marked differences in the number and type of coating materials present, their condition and interaction with original paint materials, and climate conditions. We cannot assume similar outcomes.

First, as the Kempley paintings were treated with more than one organic 鈥榩reservative鈥� coating and previous attempts to remove these were not successful, materials that were once partly solubilised and then recombined are left behind. Where these altered residues remain on the paint surface, highly distorted micro-flaking has occurred. This is very different from the state of the coated painting at Little Hampden (compare Figures 3 and 4). Has the Kempley flaking substantially changed over time? The archival image base is surprisingly poor for such an important painted church, but what little comparative evidence exists suggests no or very little adverse change or paint loss in the last two decades or more. Could it be that despite the presence of the coating materials, ongoing deterioration is not really a 鈥榩roblem鈥�?

This is a critical question to answer. In an ongoing conservation programme, English Heritage has established a 3D photogrammetric monitoring base to record conditions on a micro-level 鈥� an essential undertaking 鈥� and correlate this information with environmental data (Figure 10). Some interesting early observations can be made. Kempley has a fluctuating climate not unlike other medieval church interiors, but there are significant differences and mitigating factors: it is unheated, making its climate less 鈥榰nstable鈥� than most; and, very importantly, it is not contaminated by salts. In this context, the real question is not whether the climate is 鈥榮table鈥� or 鈥榰nstable鈥�, but whether the painting in its current compromised state can tolerate the existing climate.

The indications are that despite the residual presence of the coating materials and the alarming appearance of the flaking, the paintings have reached a point of stasis under current climate conditions. This would be a significant finding, meaning that no remedial treatment is necessary. Indeed, even if some deterioration and loss are ongoing, this must be weighed against the potentially higher risks of now trying to remove the residual coating materials from paintings in such a fragile and vulnerable condition. In this case, avoidance of physical intervention would be the best possible conservation decision.

The prospect at Kempley of leaving materials on its painting that should never have been there in the first place may seem counterproductive to the usual aims of conservation practice. It would be simpler and neater to think that coatings at Little Hampden and Kempley 鈥� and at many other painted churches 鈥� should be removed once and for all. In fact, this view 鈥� conditioned by past expectations of how wall paintings were treated 鈥� remains prevalent. To justify largescale cleaning, which is a mainstay of many private conservation practitioners, it is still easier to claim that coating materials are causing active harm, without supporting evidence. For many medieval wall paintings especially, it is routinely claimed too that they are technologically 鈥榮imple鈥�, with the implication that they are therefore 鈥榮trong鈥� enough to withstand proposed interventions.

The examples of Little Hampden and Kempley make plain that to predetermine treatments on these grounds is both wrong and potentially dangerous. This presentation has highlighted the extremely depleted states in which many of our wall paintings survive. They cannot continue to be treated by default as they were in the past. Case-by-case diagnosis is required, to define where cleaning may not be necessary, as at Kempley; and to determine where it is needed, as at Little Hampden, as well as to define appropriate treatment parameters for the intervention and indicate other required conservation measures. If the practicing conservator is not doing this as a basic requisite, the diminishment of our already much compromised wall painting heritage will only continue, this time to a point of no return.

听

The conservator will understand that wall painting treatment should only be undertaken once all building defects and environmental issues are identified and addressed. However, is important not to assume that others will have the same contextual view of the conservators鈥� involvement. It may come as a surprise to many on a design team that wall painting conservators are well-versed in, among other things, the effect of the building condition, heating systems, rainwater disposal systems and the effect, both direct and indirect, of visitors (Figure 3).

As an archaeologist, I am not, perhaps, as concerned with the aesthetics or the authenticity of wall paintings like Pickering as Pevsner. Rather, my interest lies in the intersection of people and buildings and in the methods by which we can reconstruct the story behind the discovery, restoration and conservation of the scheme. And whilst Pickering may be exceptional in the range of sources that survive to illuminate its story, it is not unique. By piecing together a range of published and unpublished primary sources we get an insight, not only into the emergence of art historical studies of medieval wall paintings but also the practices of conservators and other experts in documenting, reporting and reflecting on their methods 鈥� something which a number of speakers at the symposium have highlighted is often a gap in surviving records of care 鈥� and which the digitisation of the archive will make a powerful contribution to correcting for future generations.

Discovery

My first reflection would be that we do not always know what survives within parish archives. Pickering still maintains an important vestry archive which includes a remarkable exchange of correspondence about the re-discovery of the paintings in August 1852, between the Revd John Ponsonby and the Archbishop of York, Thomas Musgrave. In it we see the clash of an elderly, conservative clergyman horrified by the appearance of Catholic saints striding across the walls of his church, and the antiquarian interests of his Archbishop, who happened to be President of the York Architectural Society.

From the Society51茶馆儿 contribution to the Associated Architectural Societies Reports and Papers for 1853, we have a minutely detailed description 鈥� and contemporary interpretation of the scheme 鈥� originally accompanied by watercolour drawings made by their artist, Mr Bevan. And although these were subsequently lost, we can substitute a series of surviving drawings made by the Scarborough Archaeological Society51茶馆儿 artist, Tom Chambers, for a similar lecture to their society.

Through newspaper articles we can see excitement spreading, as the Archaeological Institute dispatch Mr Spencer Hall, Librarian of the Athenaeum Club, to report on the papers, and local celebrity artists such as Mr Frank Howard write opinion pieces about their national importance and potential to put Pickering on the map.

But these sources also give us an insight into tensions on the ground. Revd Ponsonby is not a popular figure in the town, as the anonymous grumblings of the correspondent 鈥楻usticus鈥� makes clear. He is living a comfortable life, with a secure income, house and curate, but refuses to support local educational initiatives, such as the founding of a Mechanics Institute. And as the antiquarians descend upon the church, they are warned that he has 鈥榝orm鈥� in the 鈥榳anton鈥� destruction of other paintings that have evidently come to light in earlier building works. Although his letters suggest his parishioners are divided in their opinion of the paintings, the views of his solicitor and wine merchant churchwardens are clear 鈥� the paintings are good for business, even if Ponsonby refuses to preach while they are exposed to view. They also illuminate Ponsonby51茶馆儿 wider concerns about the 鈥榙angerous days鈥� being faced by the Anglican Church in 1852: the internal threat he perceived being posed by the Oxford or Tractarian 51茶馆儿 to reformed religion; the resurgence of Catholicism in the wake of the 鈥楶apal Aggression鈥� of 1850, including the appointment of a new Bishop of Beverley and the establishment of a new Catholic seminary at nearby Ampleforth. Non-Conformism, too, was on the rise in Pickering with new Methodist Chapels under construction.

Ultimately, Ponsonby defies his archbishop, instructing a local builder, Mr Salton, to plaster over the paintings using a 鈥榗opperas鈥� mix. The survival of a notebook in the vestry archive, which contains a draft of an article published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal (YAJ)in 1895 on the restoration of the paintings by a later incumbent, Revd George Herbert Lightfoot, contains beautiful detail (not included in the published account) that the builder sought to change the recipe to minimise the damage to the scheme.

Restoration

Between 1852 and 1880 there are other stories to be told 鈥� not least of the scandalous affair between Ponsonby51茶馆儿 successor, the Revd George Cockburn and a 26-year-old parishioner, Jane Wardell researched by my former tutor at York, Professor Ted Royle as a Borthwick Pamphlet, A Church Scandal in Victorian Pickering (2010). It is a fascinating example of how local history detective work can tell a nationally-significant story about gender and class relations. I recommend it!

The scandal left Pickering Church empty, and the next chapter in the story of Pickering is the story of the restoration of both the church building and its community, followed by the re-uncovering and re-painting of the scheme by the Revd George Herbert Lightfoot in the 1880s. Here, a range of sources survive, from Faculty petitions, plans and drawings, churchwardens鈥� accounts and Church Commissioners archives deposited in local and national archives, newspaper accounts and, for the first time, photographs and postcards as well as Lightfoot51茶馆儿 contributions to local antiquarian society visits, publications including his YAJ article and guidebooks. Together, they provide a fascinating insight into both the attitudes and methods of Lightfoot and his artistic advisor, Edward Holmes Jewitt of Shrigley & Hunt (Lancs.), one of the leading ecclesiastical art firms of the day.

Pevsner might deem this a 鈥榬uthless restoration鈥�, but Lightfoot provides an aesthetic and theological justification for wanting to provide his parishioners and visitors with a 鈥榗omplete鈥� and legible scheme through which they could understand the purpose of the paintings and their rehabilitation into a late nineteenth-century century form of religious practice. Comparing the surviving drawings and descriptions allow us to see that Lightfoot and Jewitt did a little more than 鈥榝ill in the outlines鈥� which had survived Ponsonby51茶馆儿 iconoclasm, drawing on the earlier antiquarian descriptions and drawings but also presumably other examples of fifteenth-century paintings coming to light in churches across the country listed in new sources such as Charles Keyser51茶馆儿 catalogue of paintings. Indeed, subsequent editions of the list reveal the gradual restoration of the scheme over the course of a decade.

The account gives little detail of the materials and methods used by Jewitt, and any attempts to triangulate this with the accounts of Shrigley & Hunt are frustrated by the destruction of most of their company archives in a fire. However, another account book (recovered this time from a store behind the organ in the church) reveals the paintings had to be cleaned in 1902, suggesting that the coatings used to 鈥榩reserve鈥� the newly painted scheme in the 1880s had created problems only twenty years later, in the very year that Lightfoot died.

Contemporary newspaper and journal accounts from the Yorkshire Architectural Society and Archaeological Institute51茶馆儿 summer excursions in the 1890s also reveal the very different perceptions of the 鈥榮uccess鈥� of Lightfoot51茶馆儿 restoration, which can be set against the context of new conservation philosophies emerging from the work of Ruskin, Morris, and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (S.P.A.B.), in the wake of the loss and destruction of ecclesiastical art and architecture in the later part of the nineteenth century. Once again, Pickering provides a lens through which we can understand contemporary debate and the emergence of approaches which continue to influence conservation practice today.

Twentieth-century conservation work

As we move into the twentieth century, a range of sources can be used to study the cycle of conservation interventions in the church at Pickering, every twenty years or so. In 1915, whilst still a student, Ernest William Tristram came to Pickering, drew the paintings and incorporated them into the 1923 landmark Royal Academy exhibition and catalogue, The British Primitives. Ten years later, however, Pickering was not included in Leeds City Art Gallery51茶馆儿 Exhibition of Tristram51茶馆儿 paintings 鈥� much to the disappointment of the Yorkshire press. By then, perhaps, Tristram understood the paintings to be more a product of Victorian restoration than medieval artistic production. But he advised and oversaw their cleaning and re-waxing between 1930-36, as he did so many schemes across the country, often with disastrous results for their preservation.

Pickering51茶馆儿 documentation in this period consists of further letters from the incumbent, the Revd Arthur Bundle, seeking funding from the Pilgrim Trust to undertake the work, and attempting to engage the local community in this further conservation work 鈥� although the publication of Ponsonby51茶馆儿 correspondence with the Archbishop as part of this history sometimes led to confusion, as an exchange in the street, published in the church51茶馆儿 parish magazine, attests!

The harsh winter of 1947, as well as the impacts of Tristram51茶馆儿 wax treatment of the paintings, led in 1951/2 to a further phase of cleaning and re-painting, this time by Tristram51茶馆儿 successor, Clive E. Rouse. A set of remarkable scale drawings of the paintings made at this time by Janet Lenton, mostly on wall paper, still survive in the church51茶馆儿 old safety deposit box, now in a Solicitor51茶馆儿 office in Pickering. Rouse deployed a new treatment 鈥� silicaseal 鈥� on the paintings, which was not successful. Just over a decade later he returned, as did Eve Baker, to advise the parish and the Pilgrim Trust51茶馆儿 wall paintings committee on the best course of action. What is fascinating here is the measured consensus of both experts, advising against the more radical proposals of the committee to remove the Victorian over-painting to reveal the 鈥榓uthentic鈥� medieval scheme beneath. Very little, they suspected, would be left, and it was preferable to make the most of the scheme the parish had always known. One suspects that this view was also expressed forcefully to these visiting experts. Rouse51茶馆儿 repainting of the St. Christopher and Christ child figures should be understood in this light.

鈥楴ow we see through a glass darkly鈥欌��.

In writing the story of Pickering, I wanted to share something of the joy of the detective work involved in researching local and national archives, bringing together such a diverse range of sources to understand not only what happened to Pickering51茶馆儿 paintings, but also why. I suspect that behind many of the schemes of paintings surviving in our churches and cathedrals are equally fascinating insights into the microhistories of local communities, incumbents and national experts coming together to understand and preserve these paintings, and that the Courtauld51茶馆儿 new digitisation project will enable the clues compiled by David Park to be uncovered and to spark new research and storytelling by people helping to care for these schemes today, as it did for me.

But at the heart of the archive is also a treasure trove of comparative material that may help us find new ways of understanding the meaning of medieval wall paintings. The last sources I found for Pickering were the earliest, which shed light on the scheme51茶馆儿 creation 鈥� one surviving medieval will, referring to the guild of the Blessed Virgin, the only religious fraternity or 鈥榮ervice鈥� we have information for, which survived until its goods were surrendered by Richard Judson, its priest, in 1548. Pickering seems to me to be a design by committee and unpeeling its layers reveals one final hidden meaning which I have tried to make sense of in the final chapter of my recent book.¹ This meaning opens up more critical enquiries about the late medieval wall paintings generally, which The Courtauld51茶馆儿 digitisation project will undoubtedly facilitate.

Conclusion

It has been a great privilege and pleasure to research the paintings of Pickering and to have fallen in love with the place and its current community, with whom I am currently working to plan the next chapter in the conservation of the scheme, together with conservation expert and faithful friend of the paintings, Tobit Curteis. The Courtauld51茶馆儿 archive was central to guiding my early research, as was the expertise and encouragement of Professor David Park. It is wonderful to see the archive now moving into the next phase of its life cycle 鈥� opening up new opportunities for scholars and the general public, too, to research, understand and help care for, our painted past.

¹ Kate Giles, The Wall Paintings of Pickering Church: their discovery, restoration and meaning (Shaun Tyas, 2022), can be ordered directly from the publisher at pwatkins@pwatkinspublishing.fsnet.co.uk.

For wall paintings in churches, St Mary51茶馆儿 Church at Kempley (Glos.) contains several schemes of wall paintings including a highly important Romanesque scheme (Figure 3), while secular medieval painting is best represented by Longthorpe Tower near Peterborough (Cambs.) which is decorated with a unique fourteenth-century scheme composed of a rich combination of religious, didactic and secular subjects (Figure 4). In addition, the gatehouse at Berry Pomeroy Castle contains a stunning depiction of the Adoration of the Magi dating to about 1500, and the Agricola Tower of Chester Castle is decorated with a very rare thirteenth-century scheme. Likewise the wall painting of St George in the chapel at Farleigh Hungerford Castle (Figure 5) is another significant medieval painting which unfortunately was very heavily re-painted in the early twentieth century, but Dr Helen Howard has shown that it is composed of an incredibly sophisticated and exquisite original technique.

Moving into the seventeenth-century, post-medieval schemes are represented by Bolsover Castle which contains four schemes of wall painting which rely on theatrical yet complex iconography entirely in keeping with a building used to hosting lavish court masques and pageants (Figure 6). Also the Elizabethan cycle of paintings at Hill Hall, Essex are a unique example of high quality figurative wall painting from a period in England where very little of this calibre survives. For eighteenth-century schemes, the splendid Palladian villa of Chiswick House has interiors attributed to William Kent (Figure 7) while the interior of the Archer Pavilion at Wrest Park, built as a picturesque retreat in the baroque style, is decorated with one of two known schemes of painting by the French artist Louis Hauduroy, active c.1700 (Figure 8).

Moving on to the nineteenth-century, important wall paintings survive at St Mary51茶馆儿 Church in Studley (North Yorks.) which contains a stunning interior by William Burges, while Osborne House is home to various very significant wall paintings including the painting executed in true fresco technique by William Dyce (Figure 9). Finally, the most modern decoration from the twentieth century includes Richmond Castle, specifically a poignant record left by prisoners of conscience imprisoned during World War I, where religious tracts, poems and drawings were pencilled onto limewashed walls of the detention cells (Figure 10). Also Hurst Castle contains a na茂ve but nevertheless significant theatre stage backdrop in one of the west wing batteries, a fascinating reminder of daily life for soldiers garrisoned.

Sir Frank Baines, Director of Works at the Office from 1920 to 1927, was a practising architect with a scientific background who strongly asserted that the treatment of architectural surfaces required specialist skills. Baines argued for the economic benefits of an 鈥榠n-house鈥� service with a more rigorous approach dependent on testing to find the most appropriate treatments.

Crucially, therefore, he decided to use Office of Works staff rather than outside restorers.听 Originally a small unit within the Architects鈥� Division of the Office of Works, the studio team grew by the late 1930s to comprise six artists with fine art training, becoming known as the 鈥楢rtist Craftsman Section鈥�, thereby becoming the first ever dedicated, government-employed team of artist-restorers tasked with repairing, cleaning and conserving paintings primarily in royal palaces and government buildings, as well as public and historic buildings. For wall paintings, key early restoration projects included the treatment of the Chapter House scheme in Westminster Abbey.

When Baines left the Office of Works in 1927, the small team was subsequently led by James FS Jack, an architectural draughtsman who had taken over the restoration of the Leighton frescoes in 1924-5 and who went on to manage the Section for many decades. By the outbreak of World War II, Jack estimated that the team had 鈥榬epaired, cleaned, retouched and preserved paintings to the extent of approximately 40,000 square feet of surface鈥�.⁴听The artists worked either in situ, as in the case of paintings such as the magnificent paintings by Sir James Thornhill at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, or in makeshift studios such as the one set up in Wren51茶馆儿 Orangery at Kensington Palace to work on the immense Rubens ceiling paintings from Banqueting House when they returned from their wartime storage.

The team finally found a permanent home in 1951 鈥� after lobbying from Jack 鈥� in the form of a Crown Estate building formerly used to retrain blinded soldiers after the First World War (Figure 12). Here the team51茶馆儿 work expanded to include the conservation of easel paintings from government buildings, estimated by Bryant to be then some 3000 paintings, works cared for today by English Heritage as well as Historic Royal Palaces, the Houses of Parliament, the National Trust, the Government Art Collection, Westminster Abbey, the V&A Museum and the Royal Collection. What set the Conservation Studio (as it was known) apart, however, was its specialisation in wall paintings and large-scale paintings as well as easel paintings. Notably, also, the team existed as a cohesive group well before the formation of dedicated conservation departments in the national museums.

After Jack51茶馆儿 retirement, Alistair Stewart became 鈥楥hief Restorer鈥� (as opposed to the previous title of 鈥楢rtist鈥�) in 1962, and was succeeded by Maurice Keevil in 1972 who oversaw the expansion of the Studio recruiting a younger generation. Jan Keevil, nephew of Maurice, then skilfully headed the studio from 1976 to 1993, being succeeded by Adrian Buckley who oversaw the work of the team with his customary charm and good humour (Figure 13). With the formation of English Heritage (EH) in 1983 as the government51茶馆儿 statutory adviser, the Studio51茶馆儿 areas of responsibility shifted towards the organisation51茶馆儿 own historic properties and advisory work on grant-aided projects. At the same time, the Studio formally acknowledged the need for distinct specialised sections for medieval wall paintings and easel paintings conservation supported by Mike Corfield, then Head of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory.

As a result the pioneering 鈥楥ondition Audit of wall paintings in English Heritage Properties in Care鈥� then followed, led by Caroline Babington and undertaken largely by Tracy Manning and Jane Davies. Completed in 1996, the individual audit reports 鈥� many of which can now be found in the National Wall Paintings Survey archive 鈥� provided invaluable information to regional teams, indicating the location and extent of the wall paintings, information on their physical history and art historical significance, and prioritising their conservation requirements using a condition scoring range from 1 (good) to 4 (unacceptable).

Change came again in late 1998, when the Wall Paintings Section became part of the Building Conservation and Research Team (BCRT). At this time it was recognised that the Condition Audit had identified the wealth of the wall painting collection and its importance as an unsung asset, leading to the ambitious plan named the 鈥榊ear of Wall Paintings鈥�, enthusiastically supported by the then Chairman of English Heritage, Sir Jocelyn Stevens, and led by Lloyd Grossman, the then Chairman of the Museums and Collections Advisory Committee. Our Painted Past, as it became known, was a project developed with participation from teams throughout the organisation and included the first ever travelling exhibition on wall paintings. This was shown in all nine English regions and seen by over 40,000 visitors. To accompany the exhibition, a gazetteer was produced for the wall paintings in EH properties. Finally, in 1999, EH brought together an international audience for a conference which assessed developments in wall painting conservation and evaluated strategies for the future.⁵

From 1999 onwards, the Section was led by Adrian Heritage, followed by Robert Gowing with assistance from Sarah Pinchin, Sophie Godfraind, Robyn Pender and Tracy Manning. However on 1 April 2015, English Heritage was divided into two parts:听, which inherited the statutory and protection functions of the old organisation, and the new English Heritage Trust, a charity that would operate the historic properties, and which took on the English Heritage operating name and logo. Wall paintings stayed under the auspices of BCRT until 2016-17, after which time their care was transferred 鈥� under Sophie Godfraind 鈥� to English Heritage, and the Condition Audit once again resurrected together with an action plan developed by Amber Xavier-Rowe (Head of Collections Conservation at EH) and Rachel Turnbull (Senior Collections Conservator, Fine Arts).⁶听Underway since 2019, the aim is to once again assess the condition of every wall painting, the amount of change that may have occurred in the intervening period since the last audit, and to identify their conservation and treatment requirements. As of November 2024, all sites have now been inspected.

In tandem, a very successful campaign was initiated called 鈥楽ave our Story鈥� which launched in September 2019 when the public were encouraged to donate to support conservation of wall paintings at four sites or 鈥渨herever the need is greatest鈥�. This raised over 拢120,000 in funds. To date 84 properties with recorded wall paintings have been surveyed, of which 79 schemes are extant. As a result it is now possible to accurately identify those sites at high risk so that further investigation, emergency treatment or estate maintenance can be prioritised and the Curatorial and Estates teams advised accordingly. The ultimate aim will be to integrate future inspections into existing survey systems in order to develop a sustainable method of condition reporting. Surveys are made at each site with inspection and baseline information recorded directly on site onto a specifically designed Excel spreadsheet. This uses an innovative methodology for wall paintings combining risk and condition adapted from the same procedures developed by English Heritage for other collections.⁷听The Excel sheet contains immediate recommendations for further investigation, emergency treatment, or estates maintenance, as well as an indication of how long conservation input will take and a recommended priority for estates maintenance.

Then to run through some of the current wall painting projects presently underway, one in progress is at St Mary51茶馆儿 Church, Kempley (Glos.) (see Figure 3) where a series of interrelated investigations and recording is being undertaken by various English Heritage and Historic England specialists as well as external conservation consultants (Rickerby and Shekede) to formulate well-considered options for the highly complex long-term care of these highly important paintings.

Likewise at Berry Pomeroy Castle in Devon, a way forward is currently being sought between the Curatorial and Estates teams and Historic England with specialist in-house advice and a consultant ecologist to resolve the considerable challenges required to conserve the unique and invaluable fifteenth-century wall painting in the castle gatehouse without adversely affecting the welfare or conservation status of the highly endangered bat community and other wildlife. Interim measures to protect the painting are therefore being put in place before a more permanent solution can be implemented during the proposed Major Project at the castle in 2026/27. Once this has been shown to be successful at reducing the deposition of bat droppings on the surface of the painting, urgent remedial treatment can then proceed.

In addition a very successful project was undertaken during February and March 2023 at Longthorpe Tower in Peterborough (see Figure 4), which was a continuation of a collaborative 10-year project begin in 2019 with the Courtauld Institute to conserve the highly important scheme of fourteenth-century wall paintings. The next phase of this programme is currently underway. It 听is also worth noting that, since the late 1980s, there has been a formal collaborative link with The Courtauld for sponsoring student research dissertations and offering practical supervision and training on conservation projects on EH sites.

The ongoing Condition Audit has also led to significant new discoveries. For example at Goodrich Castle in Herefordshire, urgent conservation by Stephen Rickerby and Lisa Shekede to stabilise what was thought to be original but simple fourteenth-century painted decoration in the chapel led to the very important discovery of a figurative wall painting dated to c.1300. This is a very exciting discovery and although the remains are scant they indicate a once extensive figurative cycle of painting. The Audit has also highlighted those sites requiring recording to assess potential change over the long-term, and hence identify conservation requirements. For example, in Chester Castle51茶馆儿 Agricola Tower a geospatial survey is to be undertaken shortly which will be invaluable to assess any change in condition of the highly important scheme of thirteenth-century wall paintings. Environmental monitoring equipment is also being installed at the same time to understand the internal conditions and the impact increased visitor numbers may be having on the stability of the paintings.

Finally, understanding and raising awareness of English Heritage51茶馆儿 wall paintings has also been extremely important in identifying much needed research requirements. For example, a third-year MA student from the Conservation of Wall Painting Department at the Courtauld (James McGhee) is currently undertaking a very valuable investigation of the wax-based coatings which obscure the internationally important late fourteenth-century scheme of wall paintings in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey (Figure 14). The potential conservation of these paintings is much needed, but exceedingly complex, and this initial research is an important start in establishing options for their long-term care. Thus the Condition Audit is proving to be extremely successful on many levels. Not only is this unique collection being re-recorded in order to establish their condition and immediate conservation requirements, but the exercise is also proving crucial in alerting the Curatorial and Estates teams to the presence of wall paintings in sites under their care, so that their future inspection can be embedded into existing survey systems.

¹听Bryant, Barbara, 鈥楽talwart Younge Men鈥�: The First Public Picture Conservation Studio鈥�, Collections Review, English Heritage, Vol.3 (2001): 128-137.

² Gowing, Robert, 鈥楧evelopments in wall painting conservation within the UK鈥�, Conserving the Painted Past: Developing Approaches to Wall Painting Conservation (Post-prints of a conference organised by English Heritage, London 2-4 December 1999), English Heritage (2003): ix-xiii.

³ Thurley, Simon, Men from the Ministry: How Britain Saved Its Heritage, London and New Haven 2013.

⁴听Bryant, 鈥淪talwart Younge Men鈥�, 131.

⁵听Proceedings of the conference were published as R. Gowing, and A. Heritage, eds., Conserving the Painted Past: Developing Approaches to Wall Painting Conservation (Post-prints of a conference organised by English Heritage, London 2-4 December 1999) (English Heritage, 2003).

⁶听With help from Helena Cave-Penney (EH Senior Survey Coordinator), Karen Gwilliams (Team Leader, Historic Building Surveyor), Sybilla Tringham (Programme Director, Courtauld Institute of Art, Conservation of Wall Painting Department), and Paul Lankester (EH Conservation Scientist).

⁷听See accessed 05/03/25.

SP: This is a panel session on collaborative approaches to wall painting conservation projects. My name is Sarah Pinchin. I’m a Commissioned Treatment Coordinator at Historic Royal Palaces and I’ll be the session chair. Tobit Curteis very aptly introduced this topic, of the importance of collaboration and understanding everyone’s role and what they’re doing on a project, and I’m hoping we’re going to be able to dive deeper into this topic in the panel because we have a group of diverse experts here.

There are three topics that I’m hoping the panellists will highlight over this hour. The first emphasis will be to reflect on the reality and complexities for different professionals working on wall painting conservation projects and research right now. After that, we’ll look at the bigger picture and question how projects should work in the future. And finally, we will examine the focus of the day, archival resources and documentation and how these have been used 鈥� how these are being used now and how these will develop going forward.

Our panel of experts is composed of two wall painting conservators in private practice: Peter Martindale is director of Peter Martindale Conservation. He’s an assessor [with the Institute of Conservation] for PACR, he served on Icon51茶馆儿 board of trustees and the Icon Stone & Wall Painting Committee and is a fellow of IIC. Ruth McNeilage is a partner in McNeilage Conservation and has also been a long-standing member of the Icon Stone & Wall Painting Committee.

We have one conservation manager at a heritage organisation: Katy Lithgow was Head Conservator for the National Trust until 2019, she was a trustee of the National Heritage Science Forum and Chair of Icon51茶馆儿 PACR Accreditation Committee, winning the Plowden Medal in 2020. Katy chairs Historic England’s Historic Estate Conservation Committee and is a member of Southwark Cathedral’s Fabric Advisory Committee. We were also hoping to have Helen Howard, Senior Scientist at the National Gallery, but unfortunately she couldn’t attend at the last minute today. Hopefully we’ll be able to answer some of the analytical questions that we might have.

We have two conservation architects: Jonathan Deeming is from the practice Purcell. He is cathedral architect at Canterbury and Lichfield Cathedrals, commissioner for the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England and treasurer for the Cathedral Architects Association. He has been an assessor for RIBA51茶馆儿 Conservation Accreditation Scheme and a member of the jury panel for the RIBA Regional Awards. Nigel Walter is an inspecting architect for historic churches from the practice Archangel. He is a fellow of RIBA, a member of the Church Buildings Council (CBC) and a trustee of the National Churches Trust. He holds a PhD in Historic Building Conservation from the University of York.

I’m now going to give the panellists the opportunity to briefly introduce the types of projects they’re involved with, their role within the project, and who they collaborate with. Then I’ll ask them questions individually, and I hope that the audience and fellow panellists will join in with responses and follow up questions. I’ll leave time at the end of the session for additional questions and observations as we conclude the full day of talks and discussion.

Ruth, could you start off with a brief introduction to the types of projects you work on? What is your role and who else is involved in the projects?

RM: I run a company with my husband, who’s a stone specialist who works on sculpture and monuments, and I specialise in wall paintings and polychrome timber ceilings and screens, and also painted sculpture and painted monuments and chantry chapels which often have wall paintings in them. I would say 80% of our work is in churches and cathedrals, working on wall paintings and painted ceilings, and 20% of my work is on domestic wall paintings and wall paintings in public buildings. I am a partner in the company so I run the projects myself, sometimes in partnership with my husband if it overlaps our two areas of expertise, and I usually have a team of between two and four experienced wall painting conservators working for me.

JD: I’m Jonathan, I’m a partner at Purcell Architects, Purcell being a fairly large conservation practice with studios across the country, over into Australia and Hong Kong. We are interested in the conservation of historic buildings and landscapes, wherever they may fall. I think I almost fell into this particular niche, which is principally around places of worship and cultural buildings associated with places of worship, which tends to lend itself to quite a large period of history, in which, occasionally, I come across wall paintings. In practice, what does that mean as a cathedral architect? Well, you’re both the lead advisor to the client, on how they should consider the security of their collection (of which wall paintings are part) in the long term, but you’re also the project architect, as and when deciding upon needing to enact a project of some sort.

I guess the other part to this is my role as an architect commissioner for the Cathedral Fabric Commission (CFC) who are the governing body for all works in cathedrals. So that is one of the most fantastic roles to have, not least dotting around the country visiting amazing places and hearing about projects and in planning, but also just to learn from the wealth of knowledge and experience of other professionals and conservators involved in the care of buildings.

NW: I’m another conservation architect. I’m not involved with cathedrals, I’m responsible for approximately 75 parish churches, all of them in the Diocese of Ely, and a sprinkling in most of the adjacent dioceses. I’m also on the Church Buildings Council, so there’s a casework element to that. While, in my day to day work, I’m not that often involved with wall paintings, I see them a little bit more often through the CBC work. I also belong to a church and I’m a licensed lay minister, so I work with a couple of churches from the inside, as it were.

And, [in] one of those two churches I’ll be preaching in next weekend, [I鈥檒l be] standing right next to a large St Christopher wall painting, which Tobit [Curteis] did some wonderful conservation work on in the last few years. So I touch wall paintings, as it were, very gently, in a number of ways!

KL: 听In the various roles [I鈥檝e held], as chair of the Icon accreditation committee, Head Conservator at the National Trust and now as chair of the Historic Estates Conservation Committee (HECC) for Historic England, [鈥he common thread has been鈥 around standards. They are [all] trying to encourage and assess and promote consistent [and] appropriate standards to the conservation that’s being practiced.

At the National Trust, my role was very much about supporting the group of conservators who were responsible, both preventive conservators looking after the properties and the specialist advisers, those who worked inside the Trust and those who were contracted from outside the Trust, to provide the expertise on the vast range of specialist materials that the National Trust has in its collections. And to ensure, as far as I could, that the right resources were in place financially to do the right projects, in terms of priority, to enable them to be brought to the attention of fundraisers for grants, because the National Trust, although large, doesn’t have enough money to do all its wall painting conservation, or indeed any of its other collections conservation, let alone all of its buildings conservation.

And that sort of thing is in common with other institutions like the English Heritage Trust and Historic England. My role as chair of HECC is working with English Heritage specialists, and members of the committee, to promote to Historic England and DCMS how well the standards are being met in terms of the care of historic buildings and collections with very limited resources, which I think typifies the whole of the field.

PM: I鈥檓 director and sole employee of Peter Martindale Conservation, and most of my work is with regard to wall painting conservation, but I also carry out work on polychrome stone and polychrome wood. I have a studio where I’m able to work on paintings on canvas and some sculpture. In terms of working in churches, I work alone or with one or two colleagues 鈥� I like to do the practical work myself鈥f I have more than that, I don’t feel as comfortable as I would like.

SP: So now I’ll just start with some questions. Ruth, how do you go about putting together your project team?

RM: It depends very much on the project. Each project is different, some are very small and I’m working on my own. For larger projects, I do have a core team of conservators who鈥檝e worked for me for a number of years, and that I draw on, but they’re not always available. And I also like to bring in new conservators when I can. I think it’s quite healthy to have [an] exchange of ideas and different people. I really like it, if the team becomes international as well, it’s not always possible.

I often have students and trainees, but only one or two, because we have a policy that we don’t have any unpaid people on site, and we would give them work appropriate to their skills, because obviously, then you can’t be completely in control of the work that’s going ahead if there’s too many. I haven’t managed yet to do the Icon internship programme because you have to arrange that way in advance and often that just isn’t possible with the time鈥� I haven’t even been able to do that with Lottery Funded Projects as yet, but鈥� I get emails from conservators and I tend to also take recommendations from colleagues.

SP: Can I ask Jonathan, that same question. Do you select conservators with specialist skills, and how do you know who to contact?

JD: It’s a great question, and it really comes down to 鈥� if I take that cathedral architect position 鈥� really what is the brief that you’re trying to address. As I hope you can tell, I feel so fortunate to work in this environment where we’re surrounded by a body of cultural experts, both through the statutory legislation those having to be there, but also that there are pools of people who are just interested to be involved, and you can use that too to help inform your understanding.

In terms of putting together a list of people, it starts with putting together the brief 鈥� what question are you choosing to answer, or having to answer? And then, if you’re fortunate to work in a cathedral that has a history of conservation skills in-house, that makes things a whole lot easier, as you can call on networks and expertise that are there. In projects in smaller parish churches or buildings that aren’t ecclesiastical, it’s often the same as most people would. It’s the Icon Register or a recommendation, but we’re looking for accredited people that can help us define the questions that we’re looking to answer.

NW: Jonathan’s been a RIBA conservation accreditation assessor, I am also one of those. One of the key things that we look at is, ICOMOS has fourteen criteria for training, and one of the key things in there is knowing when you don’t know enough and calling in the right sort of expertise. So that’s a kind of core skill that you, any decent conservation architect, should be able to know 鈥� you should know exactly what you don’t know, because that’s when you cause trouble, and start destroying things.

SP: Can I go back to Jonathan and say how much of the project direction is defined by those controlling the budget?

JD: I think the way to look at this is, how have the budgets been defined? Because, as an architect, as any professional, you can’t be reckless with either the building that’s in front of you, or the task, and neither with your clients entrusting you to deliver something for them. It comes back down to the brief. Tobit [Curteis] showed that RIBA diagram of projects running through stages 0 to 7. And I’d say, the projects that are controlled by the person controlling the budget most poorly haven’t spent enough time in stages 0 and 1, in properly getting to understand that what’s in play, and indeed stage 7, which is buildings in use; most of us who are working with churches and cathedrals, that’s where we’re living day to day. I think if you spend the right amount of time there, looking for patterns, looking for trends, looking for things that have changed, you’re likely to be able to properly get specialists in to help you to find a brief and then appropriate budget. If you don’t do that, it can be really problematic working to a budget. And budget holders do have control, and it’s our responsibility to work to those budgets.

SP: Nigel, do you want to say anything more on that?

NW: Just that buildings as a whole, and building projects, are very simple things in all their complexity, in the sense that they are simply an answer to a question. Now the question in the case of an historic building is one that has evolved over time, and is many layered. But when you come to do a particular chapter of work on a multi-stage building [project], as one is in with historic churches, then it’s absolutely essential to get the right question, and that’s what the brief setting is about. Stage one 鈥� if you don’t get the right question, you don’t start any chance of getting the right answer, and clients tend not to understand that.

In terms of the money, and where the money comes from, in my experience, with some exceptions, most churches don’t start out thinking we want to do the proper thing to our nice medieval wall painting. Most churches are hanging on by their fingertips financially and, if they’ve got the energy and can get together the resources to do a project of any sort, it’s probably not to the wall painting. So the opportunity to do the right thing by the wall painting probably comes along by other means, and the money is often a sort of carrot, you know, grant money that becomes available [from] Historic England or wherever. In that sense you would say, yes, the money is driving the intervention or being leveraged to enable the intervention by somebody who has the best interests of the building at heart.

SP: My next question is about influencing long-term care. Can I ask Ruth, do you go back to revisit your projects? And do you ever set up monitoring of specific areas for condition survey cycles, that sort of thing?

RM: Well, this is all down to funding, and it depends very much on the project and the client. I have some projects which have a known issue with the stability of the painting, like at Richmond Castle, which you saw the photo of earlier with the graffiti from the conscientious objectors. I’ve been going back there for about 14 years, just monitoring it because it’s a known ongoing problem partly because of the characteristics of the painting, and it is stabilising now. But that’s very unusual. It’s rarely possible to set up a formal monitoring system in a parish church. I do include it sometimes in my reports, but obviously, church wardens change so the information doesn’t necessarily pass on. I do informal visiting of my sites if I happen to be passing and if I do see an issue, then I will contact them. Now, I have a few projects I’ve been asked to look [at], which were undertaken by other conservators [between] the 1980s to the early 2000s. That’s a sort of form of monitoring, but I’m looking at somebody else’s work.

SP: And Peter?

PM: Like Ruth, when I finish a project, and prepare the final conservation report, then [I] state that [the] wall painting should be reviewed again in a certain number of years鈥� time, and that varies, sometimes between 5 and 10 years, it depends on how comfortable I feel that the painting is in a good situation鈥� 听I’ve only been asked to go back to carry out such a survey once, in all the time that I’ve been [working].

But I would like to come back to a point that Mark [Perry] made earlier on, and that is that we 鈥� and I hope I speak for Ruth as well 鈥� we in the private sector do spend [a lot of] time preparing reports, which is not [properly] financially recompensed [even] if one is actually carrying out the practical work. I think that was an important point.

SP: Yes, [conservators] bear a lot of responsibility to the future conservators that are going to come along the next time, wanting to produce [comprehensive] documents for them.

PM: Yes, and because that is so important鈥� if I was to carry out a condition survey, then the more historical information that is available, the better. For instance, [information from鈥 the Church Buildings Council, and other conservators [e.g.] Perry Lithgow Partnership, their archive, or Ann Ballantyne鈥� sometimes parishes themselves would have gathered information that is very useful. The more information that you’ve got going into a project, the much better informed your decision making and you鈥檙e in a much better position to explain things to whoever is involved: the parish, the architect, visitors, whoever. And then you can put that information in the final report.

SP: Katy, what is the role and the responsibilities of those commissioning conservators to the preservation of wall paintings? Can you speak about long-term planning and revisiting of projects?

KL: Institutions have more staff, [but] they may also have more stuff. In many cases, I would say in the National Trust and in English Heritage, it’s preventive conservators who do the job like the churchwarden, and the specialist advisers, because they鈥檙e the eyes and ears who are carrying out continuous monitoring and then call in the specialists when it’s needed. The preventive conservators in the National Trust were very important part of annual budget rounds and 5- to 10-year budget planning to make sure that resources were available so that they could call in special services to do work. Intervention intervals at which people would come back would vary according to the needs of the paintings.

I can think of ones which have an active deterioration problem. One might go and count how many flakes have fallen off every 3 to 5 years, whilst one proved the point that the problem is not having a blind on a window to stop direct sunlight, for example, or for other work which, as we’ve heard today about Kempley, has involved a proper project being set up to collate and examine whether a phenomenon of deterioration which looks active is or not.

It’s very important to be able to do that project budget planning and maintenance budget planning so that the resources are available for people to be commissioned to go back and regularly inspect them, but also to have the general eyes and ears to be wandering around the place and notice if something is looking different from how it normally does. I can think of parallels 鈥� that’s what the private owners and the church warden does.

SP: Jonathan, do you want to say anything about commissioning conservators and the responsibilities of doing that?

JD: Yes, we’ve touched on it a little bit, but once you’ve got the information that gives you confidence that you know where you’re heading, then I think the role of commissioning conservators and indeed others that might be involved, if it goes beyond pure conservation into some sort of alteration, you have to work with the team to design that process. And for the same typology of conservation project, you might have a completely different process depending on the context of what it is that you’re designing for. Often there are multiple people working through different approaches to that, responding to a design brief which will give you a different conservator, or even the role of an artist in the conservation process to help you understand where you’re taking the project and what role that project outcome is going to have.

SP: Nigel, can I ask how your projects are normally funded?

NW: It varies. Often the sort of church projects that we work on will be entirely funded by the congregation, by sacrificial giving. The thing with churches is there’s such variety, right? And some churches are full of energy and growing and taught that it’s quite important to give to keep the show on the road, which is how these buildings were created in the first place, through the sacrificial giving of generations. So there are churches like that, and then at the other end of the spectrum, there are churches that just cannot imagine raising more than three and six pence at a cake sale and are therefore entirely dependent on grants, which is a much weaker position to be in, not least because 鈥� as a grant giver 鈥� such a church is much less attractive than a church that听 has got some energy about it.

It’s anything between those two extremes and often it’s a mix, and there’s an art for a church body to leverage some success, whether that’s internal or external, or to access other funds. There’s a sort of snowball effect I observe sometimes.

SP: Peter, could you say something about the challenges of making cases to non-technical stakeholders?

PM: I’m happy to face the challenges. I think I’m getting better at trying to explain to people what would be a good course of action. Whoever asked me along in the first instance to look at the object or the painting, I try to explain to them what I’m seeing and what I think might be done.

Generally speaking, [those discussions] move on to commissioning a condition survey. I have noticed that the Church Buildings Council, with their seed funding for those reports, is very much welcomed by parishes. That seems to be working very well. They really respond to that.

Then the dialogue extends to the architect and other people involved in the project. I try to put my thoughts as clearly as I can into a report that explains and justifies a course of action. That course of action might be to carry out further investigations, as well as suggesting doing something without further investigations.

SP: Nigel, can I ask you one final question about how projects work now? In administering grants, can you tell us a little about what you want to see in the submission document?

NW: Great question. As a trustee of the National Churches Trust, as the architect on the board, I chair the grants committee, so have the wonderful privilege of giving away several hundred thousand pounds a few times a year; [that51茶馆儿] not, I’m afraid to say, to wall paintings. This is not a wall-painting specific comment, but I think there’s some generic things behind the grants world that are worth observing:

One is that a lot of it is about the story you tell. There’s one approach: filling an application with loads of information. But if you can’t discern a nice story, a story that you want your grant-giver to join in on, then you are less likely to be successful. What is the story that’s going to grab attention and make somebody think, yeah, I like that one. Because a lot of it is a little bit like selling houses, a lot of it’s emotive.

Second, at least in my experiences with the various committees I鈥檓 on, they鈥檙e staffed by volunteers who have limited time. So, the half a dozen hundred pages of a case file are not all going to get read. So be up front with the message and by all means have the other information there, but think about structuring it in a layered fashion. It’s about grabbing attention and being legible, and 鈥� you know 鈥� tell me a good story.

SP: We have a question from the audience.

Audience member: What advice would you give to emerging professionals embarking upon their career?

NW: If I were starting out, I would pay much more attention to networking, because this is a really small world that we float around in. A lot of it is by being known and who you know, and that’s not a bad thing, it’s just a function of the nature of the landscape that we are negotiating. But in addition to that, when you are going outside of that landscape to people who might be commissioning you for work, then having tokens of authority is important. By which I mean the Masters [degree] for example, because the people commissioning this stuff often are in a position where they do not understand what it is they are buying, but they need to feel they have a reason for making a choice. And the way you make a choice when you don’t know what you’re doing is you look for those tokens of authority. So, it’s accreditation, you know, conservation accreditation is another classic thing. Yes, 鈥榥ot to be backward in coming forwards鈥� and networking experience would be mine.

KL: I would not be disheartened about seeing an enormous mountain that seems to be very difficult to penetrate, because I think you’ve got an awful lot of things which are playing in your favour, notably your youth and your enthusiasm and the current innovation of your knowledge. I think that goes a long way to make you a valued collaborator with practicing conservators, or with organisations looking to recruit you.

It may be that opportunities don’t seem to be that numerous, or [well] funded, but you will be surprised about which opportunities kind of crawl out from underneath. Don’t be daunted by the fact that lots of people are constantly telling you how difficult it is out there, because if you’re interested and enthusiastic you have that to offer people. I think 鈥� in a serendipitous way 鈥� opportunities will come to find you. I can’t say that there are great funds of money that are out there, but I think there’s a lot of narrative about how difficult things are. Don’t be discouraged by that sort of thing.

RM: Yes, and I would say just keep re-sending emails because sometimes I don’t know when I’ll have a project where I can actually bring people on board, and then unfortunately, the emails sort of get lost. And so two years down the line, I think oh yes, that person wrote to me. But, you know, just keep resending it. It’s not actually annoying if you’re send emails because then something might pop up. And I would say, working with various different specialists in the field is incredibly useful as well because it is a collaboration.

NW: Look for opportunities to give of your time, if you have time that you are able to give, because all of this sector relies on volunteers, so that’s a good way of networking and getting alongside people.

SP: Can I turn that question around a little bit and say what should we all be doing to help emerging professionals? What should institutions and grant bodies and other organisations be doing to help the emerging professionals?

KL: I think there51茶馆儿 been quite a step change over the past 10 to 15 years with programmes of funded internships. [These] have been dealt a听blow by Covid, and we don’t seem to have picked that thread up again. Some of the heritage institutions that might have offered those in the past are still getting their ducks in a row to contend with the financial challenges that Covid has made to their budgets in terms of visitor numbers.

But still the Heritage Lottery Fund, through engagement and social outreach impacts that they’re looking for, will 鈥� if the case is made well 鈥� set the project up so that there is the capacity, both in terms of time and money and support to the conservators who are running the project, to take on interns. And allying with a model like the Icon PACR scheme means that at least there’s a framework within the freelance sector that ensures a good and equitable experience to both host and practitioner, which is the kind of duty-of-care that an academic institution would perform for their students when they put them into placements.

Those kinds of roles can be implemented differently whether you’re in the academic society or the heritage society. I think as a sector, the more that we can promote, welcome, encourage and, be willing to host internships, both at the end of the training period, but also as the kind of first steps in a career, I think that’s one of the most valuable ways that I’ve seen that that functions. Sometimes those intern roles do translate into jobs, even if they’re short-term contracts. That is the flavour of the heritage field.

SP: We have another audience question.

Audience member: Understandably, there51茶馆儿 been a great deal of emphasis today on the mural paintings of the Middle Ages鈥� but does the panel think it would be prudent and sensible to have a project which managed, recorded and conserved the paintings of, say, the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century now, while most of it is still relatively intact? There51茶馆儿 a fantastic body of work there鈥� but it51茶馆儿 a period which is relatively neglected at a moment when we could take time by the forelock, and do something about it.

RM: Well, I work on nineteenth-century wall paintings, and I’m sure that a lot of other wall painting conservators do, so it is being done. I’m not sure if there’s more emphasis on the conservation of the medieval. I feel that people are aware.

JD: I was having this discussion with somebody here earlier today around the assumption that twentieth- and twenty-first-century work doesn’t find its way into conservation management plans, inventories and the like. And that’s our job, all of us here. It’s our job to help draw attention to the fact that it’s in its most vulnerable state in its first 70 plus years, when tastes change and the like. Not wanting to forego a future conservator or architect or archaeologist51茶馆儿 joy in uncovering something that may have been destroyed or harmed, it would be far easier for all of us if we were properly making those records available now, and allowing those in the future to form their own judgments.

One final thing to say on that is that when we’re making those records, it would be really helpful if we could start to get some clarity when referring to archival records on what was proposed and what was done. Because more often than not, there’s a lot of data available, and a lot of iterations of data. And it is so easy to find yourself in a situation, particularly in very recent history, where two people can present differing pieces of information and both appear to be equally valid, and it’s very difficult then to form a judgment on sound grounds of the relevance of that information. So yes, I would love to see us record more information now.

KL: I suspect your impression might have arisen as an artifact of the way that the case studies have been presented today. My understanding is that wall paintings of any period are within the scope of the survey here. I’m aware of a lot of work recently on Baroque wall paintings. I think you could probably say that there’s been even more recent inventive work on nineteenth-century decorative church wall painting [ than there has] been on medieval paintings, because a lot of that has been kind of done. Twentieth-century wall paintings one finds increasing at risk [are] in building developments 鈥� Feibusch [for example] is generally not widely admired by property developers these days, when they find [his work] in the basement of shopping centres or church halls. But there are people working in this sector. It just may not have been mapped out in a systematic way, which might be an interesting exercise that could come out of the Survey, mapping, what paintings of what period exist, where.

SP: I want to skip ahead because I know we’re running out of time, and I’m going to just move to archival information. Are you gathering the right types of information? Should we be producing other types of information? Can I go to Jonathan?

JD: It’s a tricky question, again, because projects start from so many different horizons and they’re trying to answer different questions. I would say generally, as an architect, the information that I’m interested in is at a practical level. Being able to understand whether there is active deterioration or change going on in the fabric, whether that’s happening on the surface [鈥r] in the substrate. It’s a more intuitive response to a technical question. Information that allows me to make those judgments on behalf of the clients, and when to identify what I don’t know and call people [in]. It’s not a straightforward answer where we’re gathering a consistent type of data, it really is very much dependent on the situation we’re working in.

SP: Has the ability to send more information made teams more collaborative? And how do you balance disseminating too much information or too little information?

NW: I would say this is an art. We have information coming out of our ears these days, right? It’s about curating the information. If I want somebody else in the design team to take note of something, I need to be signposting to it in the thing that I’m sending them. People don’t have the time to read everything that is sent to them.

KL: From the point of view of what information will be necessary for the future, the听 point I wanted to make was that when people mentioned things like developing codes and structures and guidelines and straitjackets for gathering information, it makes my insides curdle, because I can think [of] so many times when one tries to collect information, and it’s never the information that answers the specific question you鈥檝e got at the time. You need something that [allows you to access] all those disparate sources of knowledge.

One would hope that one of the outcomes of the focus on digital, and the digital economy, and digital management, is that there is more capacity to work without the need for completely structured data as a means of then being able to retrieve useful information, and that the opportunities that people tell us about with machine learning and the somewhat oxymoronic phrase of 鈥榓rtificial intelligence鈥� may help conclusions to be drawn out in a more synergistic way from these rather messy data sets, because humans are messy and therefore the information that they collect, however rigorous and correct people are trying to be, is always going to be messy. I find, whenever I file anything, it’s always the bit that I haven’t filed that I want to know.

NW: The institutional memory of most organisations is very poor 鈥� an awful lot of information is tied up in the individual. Mark [Perry] was talking about that, Kate [Giles] was talking about it. It wasn’t quite 鈥榩ictures down the back of the reredos鈥�, but it’s that kind of thing. As a discipline 鈥� or multiple disciplines here 鈥� we are also like that. I suppose it’s a challenge to all of us to share the stuff that we’ve got, because somebody in the future is going to find it really useful.

SP: Do I have any other questions from the audience?

Audience member: I’m a conservation architect, and we talked about the very important matter, which was follow-up on the condition of wall paintings after work had been done or a survey had taken place鈥� In churches we have the quinquennial inspection system. Is there a way we can change the processes involved in wall paintings? For example, if it is a condition of the grant?

RM: I always look at the quinquennial report as one of the first things I go to, when I鈥檓 asked to do a condition survey, and I do find quite often the architects do raise issues if they’ve noticed something with the wall paintings. Obviously they’re not conservators 鈥� but if they’ve noted something鈥� that’s sometimes the reason why I’m contacted, it51茶馆儿 through the architect.

NW: And there’s real value in the architects sticking around for multiple cycles, which doesn’t always happen.

Audience member: I think it’s a really interesting question, because we have two different systems, certificate of completion for Faculty and then if we’re funding a project through the Lottery evaluation process, it’s very rare, in my experience, that Lottery pay much attention. They want that quick evaluation of money well spent [and] I wonder whether that’s a really useful thing 鈥� I’ve always wanted Lottery to come back to the projects in 5 years and ask, what difference did our investment make? Often wall paintings are such a good example of this. They鈥檙e game changing when you give back a really distinctive story, and change their sense of pride and place鈥� 听all those place making things that Lottery are interested in. But they never come back and say, well, why did that matter, and I think if we had that follow-on evaluation step, when we are getting somebody back to look at what difference [was] made鈥� [that would be really valuable].

Audience member: Well, one way to do that is for the quinquennial [to record] what work has gone on, who did it, and not necessarily have the documents attached but to say that they have been lodged, for example, with the National Archives or something to make it traceable. Because the QI is the only document [for a] church that the management carries [out], whether it51茶馆儿 the same architect or not, and it51茶馆儿 copied to the archdeacon, so it51茶馆儿 [circulated].

Audience member: [Just going back to an earlier point about how to fund good documentation in conservation projects鈥 I told you in the previous section about funding opportunities. 听If you have an archive [at a site with wall paintings], there51茶馆儿 a whole series of different funding applications [available]鈥� I often work with parish churches, who can get funding if they have archives鈥�

Audience member: I was just going to make a comment that, very often there would not be funding for subsequent visits, but I have been involved in a project where, from the very beginning, the church was so interested that they secured funding for a survey after a year, and another survey after 5 years. And when we did imaging, [after project] completion, I wanted to review it with the same set of images next time, but the company who did the first set of imaging ceased working and we now have a problem finding a company who will work with the data provided鈥� so that we can overlay the information to see whether something has changed.

SP: We’re at the end and I need to thank the panellists for a very thought provoking hour. Thank you.