Care, Clean and Conserve - Behind the scenes with the house team

A volunteer cleaning a book from the collection

This January, February and March we’re doing a lot of work in the mansion at Greys Court to check and clean the collection. Come to the house to discover conservation techniques, speak to volunteers and find out how we care for the collection.

Deep cleaning

Throughout January and February, the house team will be going room to room, cleaning the house thoroughly to every last cupboard. Whilst they deep clean, one of the rooms may be roped off, but you will be able to see what they are doing and ask them any questions you may have.

Deep cleaning includes ceramic and brass cleaning, checking books for mould, looking for signs of bugs and documenting objects in the inventory. We will be showing you our collection up close, with textiles shown under a microscope so you can see the impact of wear and tear, and learn more about what we do to reduce this impact.

Book cleaning in the library at Greys Court, Oxfordshire
Lady cleaning a book for conservation purposes in the Greys Court house
Book cleaning in the library at Greys Court, Oxfordshire

Behind the scenes textile tours

The house team will be running a series of behind-the-scenes tours where visitors get to peek in the attics, nursery and store cupboards. These tours will run every Thursday in January, February and March and will begin at 10.30am, subject to volunteer availability. These tours are led by our expert volunteers and are first come first served - please pick up your tickets from Visitor Reception.

Rose garden wall restoration

The finished result of the restored wall
The restored wall
The finished result of the restored wall

After hundreds of years, the wall between the Rose garden and Tower garden sadly collapsed after a spell of heavy rain saturated the lime mortar.  Last winter we were busy restoring the wall using traditional materials of brick and flint bedded in lime mortar to fit neatly back into its historic context. Why have a stroll aorund the gardens and take a look at the finished result?

The collapsed wall at Greys Court showing the collapsed section of wall.

Wall restoration work in the garden at Greys Court 

We've restored a wall in the Rose Garden after it collapsed last winter due to severe weather conditions. Find out more about what happened to the wall, and the process to get it standing up again.

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