John Nethercott & Co.

15/02/2022

https://fb.watch/bbBO0wVY7l/

26/03/2021

A History of Hay Castle in 100 Objects - 71/100

Over the next few months, we're going to take you on a bit of a journey through some of the unusual, spectacular, mundane, and bewildering objects which tell the story of Hay Castle. Follow us to collect the full set!

71/100 - The Great Gates

This week sees the installation of one of the most iconic elements of the restoration of Hay Castle – the Great Gates. These were removed in 2018 and have been restored under the supervision of John Nethercott at his workshop in Presteigne.

Once reinstated, they will be the oldest working defensive gates in the UK. Work has continued this week and will take a few more weeks to be completely sorted.

The two gate leaves are both remarkable in having had no previous repairs to the timber and it is possible that the medieval East Gate has never previously been taken down. Here's why - it's no easy task!

27/03/2018

While throwing out the contents of my old briefcase, found this nice pic of a young John working on a walnut chest on stand that we made many moons ago!

06/05/2015

http://johnnethercott.co.uk/

The High Table for Tretower Court

Tretower Court is a unique building that nestles in the hills above Brecon. It was home to the influential Picard and Vaughan families for the first seven hundred years of its life. In the 18th century its status began to decline (as was true of a number of fine Welsh houses) to the extent that it was used to house farm animals for many, many years. The house, its grounds and the adjacent castle ruins have now been rescued by the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, Cadw.

As part of the recent representation of its several mid fifteenth Century rooms, we were asked by Cadw and Historical Consultant Dr. Charles Kightly to make, in addition to other pieces, the High table for the magnificent Great Hall.

One is very seldom given the opportunity to produce such an iconic piece of furniture, particularly a table which would be located and used in such an authentically restored setting.

Very few existing tables of this age survive and it was necessary to use early paintings as a guide - Flemish or Italian masterpieces, for example, or ecclesiastical Psalters.There are stylistic variations throughout Mediaeval Europe, but the basic simplicity of form is constant with a demountable top and any number of free standing trestles of cleft and dressed oak.

The table was made with a magnificent two-board top and its trestles were carved and painted red, gold and green, displaying the three Suns of York and the snake of the Vaughan family who held Tretower Court in the mid C15th.

As was the universal convention of the time, the table was to be positioned broadside on the dais at the High End of the Hall with the Lord and his Lady seated centrally and facing the Hall.

05/05/2015

A CHURCH and house at Discoed near Presteigne have won a prestigious architectural award.

20/02/2015

10/02/2015

“Created in 1617”
Our Addition to Edinburgh Castle (in 1999)

Our attention was recently caught by a colourful tourist flier promoting Edinburgh Castle’s Top Ten Highlights. Listed at no.3 (after The Crown Room and Great Hall) was the description which read :- “Royal Palace, rooms created in 1617 in honour of James V1”.

Two of these rooms, The King’s Dining Room (now referred to as the Laich Hall) and The King’s Presence Chamber were indeed originally created in 1617 under Sir James Murray, Master of the King’s Works for the long awaited “Homecoming” of James V1 to the place of his birth; but they are not what we see today:

After the King’s brief visit (he quickly repaired to Holyrood Palace which was much more comfortable) the splendour of the Royal Apartments began to decline and, within 50 years, the chambers were being used by the Army as quartermaster’s stores, their elaborate woodwork stripped out by soldiers and used as firewood.

In more recent years the chambers were used by the Secretary of State for official functions. Although, by the mid-20th century, the rooms were comfortably presented, Historic Scotland believed they had no value as a tourist attraction.

As part of Phase 3 of Castle Development (which began in 1989) the Apartments were to be represented as they may have appeared almost 400 years earlier, which is where Cliveden Conservation - who made the magnificent plaster ceilings - and we came in.
A great deal of research was undertaken by Historic Scotland into period Scottish details, as very little evidence other than a small section of a plaster frieze and Sir James Murray’s documentation remained. Sadly, the wonderfully intricate screen initially envisaged by Historic Scotland would have been prohibitively expensive to create. Instead a much simpler design was used.

Made from quarter sawn Herefordshire oak the new screen was created in our Welsh border workshops together with the floors, panelling, stairs, doors and carvings that are the new rooms. The project also involved several weeks of interesting but demanding installation work at Edinburgh Castle.

The project merited two visits from HRH The Prince of Wales and has received Awards.

photos by Paul Highnam, John Nethercott and W***y Bullough

12/01/2015

Conservation of Medieval Choir Stalls and Canopies (Nantwich) p.3/3.

We actually began the conservation work on this project by starting with the cleaning and finishing. This gave us the opportunity to inspect the magnificent Canopies and Stalls closely - a little ahead of our carvers and restorers.

The slow and painstaking cleaning work to the North side began at the High Altar and our finishing team moved, stall by stall towards the Crossing by means of a specially adapted double-decked tower scaffold which meant we could work together on two levels at a time.

The Cleaning:
Years of dust and detritus, over half an inch deep in places, was vacuumed with a specialist lightweight conservation vacuum cleaner before any wet work could begin. We used an alkaline conservation grade liquid soap diluted with water for most of this, but the black, varnished Victorian (and later) carvings needed more attention in order to achieve an harmonious colour. For example: the early 20th century

angel bosses beneath the vaulting and many of the small pinnacles were naturally of much paler oak than the 15th century work and required re-colouring after the removal of the very dark varnish with which they were coated.

Traces of Paint:
During this gentle cleaning process we were delighted to discover some traces of original, pre-Reformation colour - mostly yellow and red (ochre?) with a few traces of sienna on the north side, although there was no trace of pigment below the large wainscot panels of the stalls.

Other than a few brush strokes, some ill-defined darker shadows and patches of yellow in the grain, these large panels have had their late medieval figurative biblical scenes scratched and defaced by inappropriate tools, perhaps knives, before being finally washed away. The surfaces of the North side panels seem to have attracted more iconoclasm than those of the South Stalls, presumably due to their scriptural content.

Despite the scrubbing away of painted decoration and its subsequent painting and varnishing, the oak still retains a size-like residue on the oldest carvings and panels.

Lighting:
As part of our contract, we replaced the old sodium lights set into the pine floor of the stalls with more advanced LED lights. This gave us the opportunity to also inspect and repair the floor, treat it for worm and improve ventilation.

And finally:
With repairs and cleaning completed, carvings and seats replaced (the latter with new 'floating' quadrants) this wonderful work of art was brought back to life with a little warmed beeswax carefully brushed on and gently buffed to fully reveal the colour and definition of the carving.

This post is extracted from John Nethercott's full report on the project.

18/12/2014

Conservation of Medieval Choir Stalls and Canopies (Nantwich) p.2/3.

Many of the fine misericords had suffered some very rough handling - some of it as long ago as the Reformation, but some as the result of recent poor repairs.
Some of these seats had been reduced by 4” or so in length in order to fit, which suggests that they were introduced and adapted from elsewhere and not specifically made for St Mary’s.

All twenty misericords needed workshop attention in order for them to function smoothly and, as is usual when working on such ancient woodwork, much of our time was spent improving earlier attempts at repair without being too invasive of the original work.

The photographs below illustrate a typical example of what was carried out by us.

Where carvings were damaged, as little of the original oak as possible was carefully removed and replaced with newly carved oak.

There is an argument that repairs should be left un'finished', but these are ancient works of art:-
our philosophy is that the eye should not be drawn to the repair, however skilful. We carefully blend our work with the original colour so that it becomes a part of the whole and (easy enough in this digital age) keep a comprehensive photographic record of where we have been.

In addition, having removed rusty screws and nails (not without struggle!) we individually refitted all twenty misericords with discreet and strong oak extensions and new quadrants before replacing them in the choir stalls.

to be continued!

14/12/2014

Choir Stalls and Canopies at St Mary's Nantwich - p1/3
The amazing piece of woodwork at the top of our page is just a corner of the medieval choir stalls and canopies at St Mary's, Nantwich.
Earlier this year we were commissioned (by architects Donald Insall Associates) to give them a 'makeover'.
Candle-blacked and filthy with the dust of decades and lacking many of their fragile carvings (some of which could be repositioned but others needing to be re-made) this was a furniture restoration project on the grand scale.
Anything that could be removed to be re-carved or repaired was carefully labelled and taken to our workshops. This included many of the fine misericords.
t.b.c.