Summary

The apse painting scheme in the Church of St James the Great, Morpeth, Northumberland, is an important survival of Victorian ecclesiastical decoration. Painted in 1875 by Clayton and Bell – probably the most famous church-decorating firm of the period – the south side of the scheme has been severely damaged by rainwater infiltration. This appears to have occurred first in c.1907, and then on other occasions since. The impact was both drastic and lasting. Flaking and loss of paint have been addressed by repeated restorations, only for the problem to re-emerge on a progressively greater scale. Photographic documentation from the late 1960s onwards shows, for example, a dramatic increase in deterioration during this period.
When the condition of the scheme became a cause of renewed concern in December 2000, reasons for its continuing deterioration were unclear. It was not known, for example, whether the fabric was still affected by rainwater penetration, or how rapidly the flaking and loss of paint were occurring.

Seeking to avoid the short-term treatment cycle that had characterised previous interventions, a phase of investigation and analysis was proposed to diagnose this situation before deciding a treatment plan.

With generous funding from the parish, this was undertaken in March 2001. In situ investigations – and analysis and research conducted thereafter – focused on identifying the origins, processes (causes and activation mechanisms) and consequences of deterioration, and on establishing remaining conservation risks.[1] The phase had four main components, as follows:

the compilation of a conservation history to identify events and circumstances that have had an impact on the fabric and the painting scheme;

a condition survey to establish both the extent and nature of the current deterioration, and to assess rates of deterioration over time;

the scientific examination of original and added materials, with particular emphasis on those that have had a role in deterioration processes; and

basic liquid moisture investigations, including examination of the interior and exterior walls, measurement of interior floor levels and exterior ground levels, core-sampling and ion analysis.

Findings suggested that the deterioration was partly linked to the dissolution and crystallisation of calcium sulfate salt, originating in a gypsum plaster underlying most of the painting scheme. The conservation history indicated that rainwater infiltration could have recurred at different periods since 1907 to activate this salt-related deterioration. It is also possible that periods of condensation may have also activated soluble salts. The apparent rate of paint flaking and loss – irregular and intermittent, albeit with devastating results – fitted with a pattern of intermittent rainwater penetration over many years. Fortunately, the liquid moisture investigations confirmed that the fabric is currently dry.

Despite these dry conditions, paint loss was still ongoing, and it was necessary to define the reasons for this before embarking on remedial treatment. The condition survey showed that new losses had expanded from pre-existing areas of flaking, and that there were also far greater expanses of flaking than there were losses. Considering the inherent susceptibility of the painting – 19th-century mural techniques are notoriously expedient – and the severe deterioration that the scheme had suffered as a result of repeated rainwater infiltration, it was concluded that the ongoing loss was primarily related to these past circumstances rather than to any new phenomena. As a further precaution, however, a trial area of paint relaying and fixing was undertaken and assessed over a suitable time period (17 months). Other than two very small areas of renewed flake lifting, this test proved stable. Alongside the collected evidence to demonstrate that there was no ongoing deterioration other than expected loss from pre-existing areas of flaking, conditions were judged suitable to proceed with the treatment of the painting scheme.

The treatment phase was conducted in September 2003.[2] The primary tasks were the relaying and fixing of the extensive areas of exfoliated painting. A number of procedures were employed – relaxing the flakes with an ultrasonic humidifier, relaying the flakes with heated spatulas, maintaining tensioned presses against the flakes – and these are detailed and illustrated in the following report. Given the nature of the paint flakes – large, rigid and brittle, severely deformed and curled, and extremely precarious – some loss was inevitable. But considering the appalling condition of the painting before its treatment, a great deal has now been stabilised. Although every effort has been made to escape the cycle of short-term treatment and re-treatment of the last few decades, some flaking will probably recur. However, the collected evidence shows that even when the painting was at its most precarious, the rate of paint loss was relatively slow. Now that the flaking paint has been secured – and the conditions that gave rise to this problem are no longer active – the painting should avoid the large-scale and extensive paint loss that has occurred in the recent past.

The fixing treatment employed an aqueous-based system, which simultaneously had some cleaning effect on the painting scheme. However, given a number of risks – the past vulnerability of the painting to liquid moisture, the evident damage done to the painting by previous cleaning attempts, and the fragility of the newly relayed flakes – aqueous (and other liquid) cleaning procedures were not generally pursued. Judicious superficial cleaning with slightly dampened swabs did, however, produce a significant improvement.

Although the Parish has a long-standing aim to restore the large areas of distracting paint loss, this was not undertaken as part of the current conservation treatment. Instead, losses were simply toned with a ‘neutral’ watercolour wash, in order to lessen their visual disturbance. While this does not preclude the future option to restore the losses fully, decisions should be viewed in the context of the recent history of repeated restoration of the scheme. At this stage, it is probably advisable to stay with a less interventive – and less costly – method of improving the presentation of the scheme.

[1] See S. Rickerby and L. Shekede, ‘St James the Great, Morpeth, Northumberland: Pre-conservation phase: Wall painting investigations, analysis and condition recording’, unpublished conservation report, November 2001.

[2] The conservation team comprised Stephen Rickerby, Lisa Shekede, Charlotte Martin de Fonjaudran, and Sibylla Tringham.