Elaine Owers proudly showcases two freezer bags filled with nearly a kilogram of dust collected from a vacuum cleaner. With a look of disgust, she reveals that this mixture of dirt and fibers is a documentation of the National Trust’s Textile Conservation Studio’s work on the final tapestry in a 16th-century set purchased by Bess of Hardwick, an Elizabethan noblewoman.
This conservation project, the longest in the National Trust’s 128-year history, will come to a close in July when the tapestry is rehung at the Grade I-listed Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. Bess, born into a family of minor gentry, rose to prominence in Elizabethan society and amassed great wealth and status. Her property portfolio included the Chatsworth estate, acquired with her second husband, Sir William Cavendish. She married her fourth and final husband, George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1567 and they were appointed custodians of the captive Mary, Queen of Scots. However, their marriage faced challenges, leading Bess to retreat to her family home and rebuild it into Hardwick Old Hall.
After Talbot’s death, Bess commissioned the construction of a new Hardwick Hall in 1590-97. During this time, she purchased 13 tapestries depicting the biblical story of Gideon. The last tapestry to undergo conservation, titled “Gideon Entering the Midianite Camp as a Spy,” is the 11th in the series. The tapestry consists of three parts – a lower border, upper border, and main field. These parts were separated when I visited the textile conservation studio in Norfolk.
Bess acquired the tapestries from the heir of Sir Christopher Hatton, a lord chancellor of England who had passed away with considerable debts in 1591. She paid a hefty sum of £326 15s 9d, equivalent to over £100,000 today, and received a discount of £5 due to the need to change the Hatton coat of arms woven into each tapestry. Bess came up with a pragmatic solution, having her shield painted on linsey-woolsey fabric and appliquéd over the existing coat of arms. However, she also directly painted her shield over the original shield on four tapestries, with no specific pattern or reason.
The tapestries were originally displayed in Hardwick Hall’s Long Gallery, an impressive room that spans the house’s second floor. Each tapestry is 6 meters tall and varies in width, totaling 71.6 meters together. After Bess’s death, Hardwick Hall remained in the Cavendish family until it was taken over by the National Trust in 1959. The conservation project began in 1999 when the first Gideon tapestry was removed for restoration. The National Trust restored five tapestries externally before taking on the remaining eight. The cost per tapestry reached up to £278,000 due to the extensive damage and soot accumulation.
During my visit to the conservation studio, I observed Elaine Owers and her team working on the stitch treatment of the final tapestry. The tapestry was originally woven sideways on a high-warp loom, with the warps tensioned around a barrel at the top and bottom. The conservators stitched through a supportive linen scrim fabric attached to the back of the tapestry, replacing broken warps and using brick couching for the vertical weft. This spaced stitch technique ensures that the conservation work is distinguishable up close but blends in with the original weave from a distance.
The team also strengthened the original linen stitches used to sew up woven slits and repaired weakened silk using embroidery cottons that matched the original colors. The wool in the tapestry, particularly the brown outlines of figures, had degraded due to iron in the mordant used for dyeing. The vivid vegetable and mineral dyes, including pinks and purples for the night sky, had not stood the test of time and were now reduced to beige.
The conservation process involved carefully removing the tapestry piece by piece using scaffolding and cutting whipstitches that held the lower border to the main field. The smaller piece was removed to make handling easier, while the remaining part was rolled off the wall onto a drainpipe covered in Velcro. The tapestry was then transported to Norfolk, where it underwent washing and drying by tapestry conservation specialist De Wit in Mechelen, Belgium.
Upon its return, the conservators divided the tapestry into manageable sections and began the stitch treatment. Once completed, they whipstitched the top border to the main field and lined the tapestry with protective cotton cambric fabric. The tapestry was attached to the Long Gallery wall using soft Velcro sewn onto cotton tape, allowing it to be easily repositioned. The lower border was initially attached with Velcro and later whipstitched after the tapestry had time to settle and relax.
In 2024, as many of the Gideon tapestries as possible will be uncovered to allow visitors to experience them in their full glory, just as Bess did. Currently, they are partially hidden by over 40 portraits that were originally hung in front of them on a picture rail.
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