Our work indoors at Attingham Park

Conservation work at Attingham

Dedicated Attingham staff and volunteers work year-round to preserve the very special building and interiors. From cleaning and conserving to making sure visitors have a special visit in the house, the work at Attingham never stops.

These are some of the recent projects they’ve been involved with:

Attingham Re-discovered

The Attingham Re-discovered project has been bringing the history, collection and interiors of the mansion back to life.

Originally a long-term programme of improvements to the interiors, with a main aim of refreshing the way the Regency rooms were presented, the project became much more than that. It became a ground-breaking example of conservation in action, in full view of the public who were engaged openly in the project at every stage.

Year after year, room by room, Attingham Re-discovered has put the slow and painstaking processes of conservation out there in front of the public and drawn them into its fascinating, detailed micro-world of mixing rabbit skin glue, couching silk damask threads, taking crystal chandeliers apart piece by piece and cleaning decorative schemes over months with cotton wool buds. This is not just to give the visitors an enjoyable day out, but provide a more meaningful, memorable experience.

Extending the project

Still going strong, Attingham Re-discovered’s engaging and transparent approach has been rolled out across the property and applied to projects such as the restoration of the Walled Garden and the Pleasure Grounds. The conservation work is not confined to the house, but is an on-going process in the outdoors as well, caring for the garden, parkland, estate buildings and natural habitats.

Such is its success that the project has no end date but has become our natural way of working.

Restoring the Nash Roof

The Through The Roof project rescued and restored the historic Nash Roof over the fully-restored Picture Gallery.

Designed by famous Regency architect John Nash, the window was a solution to the problem of having a room with no windows where all the objects were meant to be seen, and admired, in good lighting.

The ‘flashy but flawed’ design on the window left it vulnerable to leaks. With water leaking in over the course of 200 years there was some highly visible damage to both the roof and the picture gallery below, including water staining and, more worryingly, cracks in the wall. In response to this, a partially covering secondary roof was installed above Nash’s original in the 1970s, but this has reached the end of its life. The Through the Roof project saw over a million pounds invested in installing a new protective hanging glass roof that will protect this iconic design for years to come.

The floating roof

The new secondary roof is a state-of-the-art ‘floating’ glass roof. Made of Pilkington glass mounted on a steel framework, this new roof will protect Nash’s from the elements and also control its environment.

The project also gave us the opportunity to get up close to the damage; closer than ever before. Much-needed conservation work was carried out on the roof and upper levels of the Picture Gallery and the Nash Staircase, where delicate stained glass panels were cleaned and repainted.

The Picture Gallery reopened on 5 March 2016.

Thank you

With your ongoing support, we're able to continue our vital conservation work. Thank you for helping to protect these special places.