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Temple Newsam House: A restoration in progress
A team of experts are hard at work restoring the historic interior of Temple Newsam House to its pre-war glory.
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It's the kind of makeover Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen can only dream about – Temple Newsam, Leeds' oldest country pile, is undergoing a transformation to restore its true identity and it's all about changing rooms.
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Temple Newsam's historic interiors were replaced or destroyed in the 1940s. The house was used as the city's art gallery during the bombing of Leeds in the Second World War.
Since the 1980s, conservators have been working to restore or reconstruct the 50 or so rooms in the house.
Now major restoration work is being carried out on three rooms in the Tudor Jacobean mansion, with the help of a substantial grant from the Wolfson Foundation, who have given 72,000 toward the project.
That money is being used to restore the rooms' original appearance, but it's not an easy task. Specialist contractors have had to be brought in to carry out some of the intricate and elaborate work.
Allyson McDermott is one of the numerous specialists called upon for her expert workmanship.
Along with staff at her studio she is recreating two wallpapers for Temple Newsam and restoring sections of wallpaper which date from the 18th and 20th centuries.
She said: "It's like a voyage of discovery – we are discovering some wonderful wallpapers. This complex and challenging work requires a degree level of knowledge.
"It's hugely demanding work. It needs a lot of experience and all my assistants are post-graduates and are extremely sensitive and painstaking at what they do. In order to reconstruct the papers we have to do a lot of chemical analysis."
Conservators at Temple Newsam have been using old photographs, documentation and inventories to form an idea of the rooms' appearance hundreds of years ago. The rooms are then excavated in the hope that some of the original features will have been left unsullied.
Ian Fraser is a member of the conservation team at Temple Newsam.
He said: "There has been a multitude of skills brought to bear to restore the rooms, looking at records to see if we can figure out what the rooms looked like. We try to get some sense of the function of the room."
Where original features have been lost, it's up to the team to figure out a way of reconstructing them, based on historic records.
The three rooms – the Darnley Room, Mr Hugo's Room and the Red Dressing Room – are the focus of attention at the moment, each of which have an important part in the mansion's fascinating past.
The history of the house dates as far back as the Doomsday Book in 1086.
Since then it has had a string of high profile owners, including Knights Templar, Edward II, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James I. The infamous Lord Darnley, murdered husband of Mary Queen of Scots, was born at the house in 1545.
Today it is a draw for thousands of visitors each year. Home Farm, is the largest working rare breeds farm in Europe.
There are extensive grounds and numerous planted gardens, including the rhododendron walk and six national plant collections.
The house is a Grade I listed building, defined as a building of outstanding national, architectural and historical interest.
Even its stables are Grade II listed, together with 10 other features of the estate, including the Sphinx Gates and the barn.
Mr Fraser said: "It's a very important historic building, not just to Leeds but nationally. A lot of people are very appreciative of what we have accomplished here. It has a national and international reputation which we are keen to maintain."
Once completed, it is hoped visitors will gain a better understanding of the historical context of the decoration and furniture.
Leeds City Council will also contribute 125,000 to ongoing work at Temple Newsam House and 13,400 to the room restoration project in the coming year.
It is hoped that the all the rooms in Temple Newsam will be fully restored within the next 10 years.
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