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Unlike many stately homes, Calke Abbey tells the story of a country house in decline, therefore many of its rooms are seemingly abandoned, dusty and a little ‘un-stately’. But behind closed doors, there’s a whole team of conservation assistants and volunteers working to preserve Calke Abbey for future generations. Find out more about the vital conservation work we do here.
During the open season, the house team can be found vacuuming the visitor route, which takes a massive three hours each day! The wooden floors are then dry mopped to keep them clean and prevent damage, and over 100 windows and 32 fireplaces are vacuumed each month.
True to Calke’s spirit of decline, the abandoned rooms are left to accumulate dust – the house team dust those rooms just once or twice a year. In the show rooms, however, the surfaces are dusted every day, and all the objects get a full dusting every week.
We also have a team of volunteers doing all sorts of vital jobs around the house, from collections cleaning and conservation work, to collection management and inventory logging.
The main priority for the winter season is to clean and inspect every room on the visitor route. The team strip all the displays around the house and clean each individual part, from the objects themselves to the walls and carpets around them. Some of the rooms have such high ceilings that we build a scaffold to clean the high walls and collections, such as in the Saloon.
Almost all of the show-room furniture at Calke has an individually designed, shaped and handmade dustcover. During the winter months, after the collection has been through its deep clean, it is vital to cover the furniture to ensure it is not exposed to any unnecessary light or dust.
Calke’s dust covers were made many years ago by a team of textiles volunteers, who made each slip the perfect size and shape for its item.
Alongside the routine cleaning of the house, sometimes we come across objects that require the attention of specialist conservators. This work is usually carried out during the winter while the house is closed.
Conservators cover all manner of specialisms, helping us to take close care of specific collections of items, such as watercolours, prints and archives (a paper conservator), clocks (horologist), and even conservators who help us assess what’s eating our collection (pest and environmental conservators).
Most of the time specialist conservators instruct us on how best to avoid damage to these items, but occasionally when an item has been badly damaged or decayed, the conservators do repair and preservation work themselves to ensure the item’s condition stays stable.
Recent conservation work has included textiles such as the Saloon curtains and costume items, lamps, pianos and some of the natural history collection.
In 2018, we installed Eyemats in certain rooms of the house along the visitor route. Eyemats are a protective flooring made to look exactly like the original floors, which means that we can still allow visitors to walk over the floors and see what they look like, without causing damage to the flooring underneath.
Did you know we have a team of metalwork volunteers at Calke? They help us to keep the metal objects and fittings in the exact state we found them in.
Using a special paste made from white spirit and renaissance wax, the team clean and treat the metalwork to provide a protective layer which preserves the current level of decay for up to five years. It’s all part of keeping Calke preserved in a state of decline!
There are over 8,500 books and maps in the libraries at Calke, with parts of the collection dating back to the 16th century through to the 20th century.
Standing vertically for many years takes its toll on books, so we’ve undertaken conservation work to prevent the pages sagging and detaching from the covers. This involved creating bookshoes to support the books – these are tailor-made slip cases to support each book, which are hardly visible on the bookshelf.
We also clean the books to prevent any further decay – if you’re lucky, you might see the conservation team in action on your next visit.
With your ongoing support, we're able to continue our vital conservation work. Thank you for helping to protect these special places.
Everyone needs nature, now more than ever. Donate today and you could help people and nature to thrive at the places we care for.
Calke Abbey is the place where time stood still. Discover the history of the 'unstately home' as a religious priory and family home for 12 generations.
Discover the 'un-stately' home at Calke Abbey, where peeling paint and abandoned rooms vividly portray a period when many country houses didn't survive.
Explore a vibrant and productive walled garden, look inside the faded glasshouses and explore Calke's fascinating collection of garden buildings.
Reconnect with nature and make yourself at home in acres of historic parkland on the Calke Abbey estate in Derbyshire.
Discover a collection of contrasts at Calke Abbey, from lavish treasures such as the State Bed to a vast collection of decaying household objects, natural history and more.
Read about our strategy 'For everyone, for ever' here at the National Trust, which will take the organisation through to 2025.
We believe that nature, beauty and history are for everyone. That’s why we’re supporting wildlife, protecting historic sites and more. Find out about our work.