The history of our building

Absolutely, and from the analysis and when working on the painting, I discovered there is one layer directly on top of the other.

When you look at it, elements of both schemes are coming through, which does get very visually confusing because you have the strong patch of 1620s painting right in the middle of the lion from the first scheme. There’s a lot of blue coming through, which is from the second scheme. One way I picture it, is if you imagine you have 2 sheets of paper on top of eachother but bits are missing from both, and in some areas you’ve rubbed through the top layer completely to see the bottom layer.

The more you look at the wall painting, the more you see, and I think if you’re prepared to put the time in to sit and look at it, I think it can be a very enriching experience.

The first time I came to look at the painting I was given some background material, so I actually knew that there were 2 schemes here. And even before this work was carried out, the stile and rail scheme was quite obvious.

In a sense, like a mechanic would lift up the hood of a car and know what’s wrong with your engine, because I’ve worked on a number of wall paintings, I could see that there were 2 schemes there, although it was a confusing picture.

Yes, you can, definitely. It wasn’t really necessary here to take samples to find out the stratigraphy because there were only the 2 layers, and when I worked on the painting I didn’t see anything else to indicate that it was more complex than that. But yes, you can take samples from various parts of a painting to consider the stratigraphy.

One can also use many other techniques, and more and more are being developed and implemented by conservators over time. Including for instance, infrared photography. Mine is relatively budget equipment, but there are more advanced options available. Because the wavelength of infrared light is long, it tends to penetrate through the first layer to reveal what is below.

In terms of other schemes, no. You could potentially do some more imaging work with an infrared camera to build high resolution images of areas of the painting in more detail, for example.

I wouldn’t suggest picking off the first scheme to reveal more of the second scheme.

As a conservator, my aim is to conserve what’s there and stop it from getting any worse, and to present it in its damaged form as favourably as possible. I appreciate you have to put time and effort in to get something back from it, but I think when you do, you get a lot back from it.

I don’t know when it was last used as a fireplace, but yes I do think some smoke had got into the material. When I carried out the repairs during the first phase of work in April 2022, when I put the lime mortar repairs into position, instead of staying white as one would expect them to do, they turned a brownish colour, so I think they were drawing some material from the plaster around them.

Thinking about it further, when I carried out the repairs, some of the fabric was quite loose, there were pieces of brick that you could move. Quite possibly when it was last used as a fireplace, which could well have been in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, something like that – not such a long time ago, the smoke may well indeed have got the back of the fabric there.

To begin with we applied a toned limewash, so looking at the painting as a whole, one selects a colour, sort of like a dirty magnolia colour, to apply to all of the fillings as a base. You don’t want the fillings to be flat in terms of colour, they need to be modulated so that you eye isn’t drawn to them. So then we applied watercolour, using earthy colours including raw umber, burnt umber, black and cool French ultramarine to tone in the repaired areas.

I’m wanting the fillings to sit back and I’m wanting your eye to be taken to the paint that remains from the original designs.

I don’t know… I’m now going beyond my comfort zone and drifting a bit from this, but when the reformation happened and there was the dishing out of properties to those who supported Henry VIII, those who supported him were keen to show their allegiance to the King by having the Royal Arms displayed. So extrapilating from that, this painting was quite a statement, saying “I am supportive of the monarch, Queen Elizabeth, and I’m supportive of the city of Winchester” – there’s quite a political statement there.

I don’t know how many would have come to have seen it, but it’s also interesting that it wasn’t visible for that long, maybe 40 years, before it was painted over. That might have been because Winchester was both royalist and civil, so they might have covered up the arms in a period when being a royalist wasn’t that good, and if this was a public room you would hide Elizabeth I’s Arms.

Yes, it wasn’t just that they had the decision to do it, but also the wealth to do it, and hire a craftsman to do that sort of work.

The painting would have been very bright at that time with the gilded lions and fleur de lis, gilded crowns on the dragon and lion, and the gilded gates of winchester with gilded lions either side.

I don’t know the answer to that one. But back in the late 1500s somebody paid for somebody to come here and paint the royal arms and arms of Winchester – the artist would have been commissioned by someone who wanted a particular picture or political statement if they were supporting the monarch.

I can imagine that not all artisans were as skilled as eachother. I can’t say if they would have got in trouble if it wasn’t up to standard, but looking back on it from the present day, I don’t think that a less skillfully depicted coat of arms is less valuable than a more skillfully depicted one, they would both have value. A well depicted one demonstrates the skill and technical expertise of the artist, but the other demonstrates the trends of the time and what was being done in other places, so you get a better picture of what was fashionable and what was going on during a time period.

They are important valuable paintings; I think that one needs to try and put oneself in the shoes of the people who were carrying out the work. What was the project? What was the space? What was the area of fabric they were going to put the painting on and how did that affect the design? How much finance was available? And what kind of an image did the client want?

Artists would likely have assistants, who would have worked on easier areas of the paintings. There would have been a lot more wall painting in this building if we went back to Elizabethan times, likely done by many hands.

The initial phase wasn’t too long because it was the application of a tissue facing to protect it during building renovation works.

The second phase was a week of filling and repairing as much as possible.

And the third phase was 2 of us here for 2 weeks.

One doesn’t want to make any mistakes, but to say that throughout my career I have meticulously saved every minute fragment, I’m afraid to say that I haven’t. There are times when you’re working with a scalpel and you think “oh crumbs, I’ve lost that” but one is always striving to be as careful as one possibly can, because you don’t want to lose anything.

The fabric of the chimney is porous material, the plaster is porous, as is the painting technique. So what is really important with this wall painting (and with all wall paintings) to preserve it for future generations is to maintain good building fabric. As this is on a chimney breast, it’s important that the chimney is kept in good order. If you have water or moisture coming down the interior, then you create problems because of the activation of soluble salts which would damage the painting. That would also be exacerbated if you put an impervious coating, like a varnish, on the surface of the porous painting, so I wouldn’t and haven’t applied anything.

From my personal point of view it’s good that there isn’t a perspex screen in front of it because it makes it easier to see the painting. And it’s also advantageous not placing a screen in front so that if one wants to monitor the condition of the painting in future, you can see it and get right up close to it.

This painting is known by Winchester City Council and it’s a Grade 2 listed property, so they wouldn’t want to see anything happen to the painting. I was first asked to look at the painting in 2006, when it was taken on by the previous owners, and asked to give conservation proposals at that time, but nothing came of that which somewhat surprised me. Then it changed hands again, and the situation came up again that the painting needed to be conserved. This time, Gentian Developments (owners of the building) stepped up the mark and had the work carried out.