Restoring the Cabinet Room at Felbrigg Hall

Once the room had been cleared, an expert carpet cleaner teamed with the National Trust's Textile Conservation Studio, came to give the Savonnerie carpet a well-deserved clean. The process included using a professional upholstery cleaning tool that sprayed a solution of water and detergent directly into the top fibres to loosen the dirt, whilst at the same time vacuuming up the moisture so the carpet didn’t get soaked through. After rubbing the area dry, you could see the results of the teams hard work instantly, with the original beautiful crimson colours appearing as if by magic, removing centuries worth of dirt, including the soot from the fireplace that hasn’t been used for at least 100 years.

Before we could clean the damask wallpaper, we needed to clean the ornate plaster ceiling. To do this, we had to devise a plan to clean the ceiling in sections, using special equipment such as plaster brushes and hip-vacs (vacuums that make you feel like a ghost buster)! Even though the plaster ceiling has been there for centuries, some parts have become fragile over time, so we used a gentle sweeping motion to remove the surface layer of dust and sucked it up into our hip-vacs. It took just under a week to clean and by doing so, we can now move onto the wallpaper.

Together with members of the House Team, Textile Conservation Studio staff were able to clean and repair the damask wall hangings. The hangings themselves date to the 1750s remodel of the room and are made from crimson silk warp and dark pink wool weft. Due to extensive surface dirt as well as mould growth and insect damage, the damask was in urgent need of some attention. Firstly, the damask had to be surface cleaned, using a backpack vacuum cleaner with a large brush extension. Mould staining was then removed with a damp microfiber cloth. The next task was to remove the thick layer of compacted dust from the gold painted fillet along the dado rail. This was carried out by swabbing the fillet with water and cotton buds.