Organisation: National Trust
Principal investigator: Rebecca Hellen
Project overview
The National Trust is responsible for the conservation of the UK’s coastline, countryside, and historic sites, and is a major holder of historic properties. The National Trust maintains and researches the UK’s largest collection of paintings, wall paintings and painted interiors in 200 buildings dating from 400 BCE to the modern day. Their conservation and research efforts are centred at the Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio at Knole in Kent, where they use paint samples and paint scrapes to inform conservation treatments, provenance and the history of decorative schemes.
Project purpose
The project aims to create the National Trust Paint Archive Collection, sharing extensive resources on the history, colour and coatings within historic houses and collections. This initiative will support the arts, culture and STEAM agendas by making scientific approaches to the UK’s material and cultural heritage accessible.
Project impacts
The project will enhance access to thousands of hidden cultural assets, transforming research methodologies through paint samples to explore the history of interiors, art, and artefacts. The project will demonstrate interdisciplinary growth as a result of the expansion of in-house interdisciplinary capabilities. This will lead to new discoveries about the collection’s significance on local, regional, national and global material scales. The project will result in increased knowledge, understanding and curiosity about the collections, from carriages to Canaletto’s paintings.
