Caring for the garden statues at Kedleston

This year some of the garden statues were given a special clean by Cliveden Conservation Studio. This work was made possible thanks to the support of visitors through the Special Places Raffle. Throughout 2018 visitors purchased £1 raffle tickets and all of the income from tickets sold at Kedleston went towards this cleaning project.

The 3 statues to be cleaned thanks to the raffle were the Medici Lion and Drayton Urn in the Pleasure Grounds and one of the pair of Coade Stone urns on the South front of the Hall.

Medici Lion

Despite his dominating presence the Medici Lion had a spread of organic growth across his surface and after being climbed on, plenty of mud and scratches. The conservator used a gentle poultice containing a biocide to gentle treat the lichen and a ammonium carbonate to remove some of the black sulfation that had built up over the years from air born pollutants. Missing mortar has been repointed using an appropriate lime mortar. The statue is made of Portland stone and was created by Joseph Wilton in 1777. This clean will make him stronger for longer!

Drayton Urn

The Drayton Urn is a memorial funerary urn created by Robert Adam in memory of Michael Drayton, a poet who died in 1631, almost 100 years before Robert Adam was born. Over the years the details of urn have softened due to weathering and there are some losses around the softer sandstone base. Much like the lion statue, therehad been a steady spread of lichen and other organic growth across the surface of the statue which needed to be cleaned to prevent further damage to the surface of the stone.

Next time you visit the garden, do have a closer look at the statues and see their brighter appearance!