8 minute read
Keeping house
1 L-R: Deborah Chandler,
Sheila Mickleson, Wendy
Glynn, Wendy Dickinson and Jane Finnemore are part of a dedicated group of volunteers working on preventive conservation for Heritage
New Zealand Pouhere
Taonga in Auckland’s historic homes, including
Ewelme Cottage.
2 Ceramic eggs, once used to encourage chickens to lay, are set on the kitchen table at Ewelme Cottage.
2
Unlike objects housed in traditional museums, items in historic homes can be subjected to conditions more like those of an everyday household. What does it take to keep them all spick and span?
WORDS: NICOLA MARTIN • IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP
On a Tuesday afternoon in the kitchen of Ewelme Cottage in Auckland’s Parnell, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga volunteer Jane Finnemore is busy helping to preserve the stories of a Victorian clerical family.
Working alongside a team of fellow specialist housekeepers, ceramic jugs and earthenware crocks have been carefully polished. A set of ceramic eggs, once used by the family to encourage their hens to lay, has been delicately cleaned and surfaces brushed.
The items that live within the kauri walls of the Category 1 cottage are those you would have expected to find amid domestic life in the 1800s. From the teacups on the shelves and linens on the beds to the pictures on the walls, everything helps to tell a story.
Ewelme (pronounced ‘you-elm’) Cottage, which is open to the public every Sunday, appears as if its owners, the Lush family, have just stepped out for a moment. It acts as a museum of sorts, except it is not, which is why the housekeeping work that Jane and her fellow volunteers do is so vital.
Unlike objects housed in the highly controlled environs of traditional museums, items in historic homes such as Ewelme can be subjected to conditions more like those of an everyday household. People and visitors come and go, and with them comes dust, dirt, grit and moisture.
The volunteers – first profiled by Heritage New Zealand magazine in 2014, soon after the group was established – work in a discipline known as preventive conservation. They were trained through a programme started in New Zealand in 2013 by conservator and heritage housekeeping expert Madelaine Abey-Koch.
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One day a week, over two years, two groups learned the minutiae of cleaning every type of household item, from ceramics to metals, textiles, fabrics and wood.
After leaving New Zealand for her overseas experience, Madelaine trained as a conservator in London. She worked at the British Museum and eventually for the National Trust and English Heritage looking after 15 heritage homes, before returning to New Zealand with a wealth of knowledge and a desire to help improve our heritage housekeeping skills. Madelaine also contributed to The National Trust Manual for Housekeeping – still considered the bible for housekeeping in historic homes.
Belinda Maingay, Collections Advisor for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says the manual provides the foundation for heritage housekeeping in New Zealand too. There are now 24 properties across the country that house collections, amounting to more than 70,000 items that require care.
“We have come a long way since 2014, but we still have a way to go,” says Belinda.
In the UK there is a well-established group of conservators with specialist knowledge on the needs of collections with heritage buildings, giving the National Trust a large body of expertise to call on, and Belinda says this is something to which Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga eventually aspires.
For now, the way forward is to continue increasing the base level of training in all Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga properties.
Belinda says they are looking at using a range of methods, from creating some in-house videos to using existing online resources from the likes of the Museums Association and developing printed materials based on best practice.
“Ideally we’d like to replicate the group we have in Auckland in Northland and the South Island, but it is baby steps,” she says.
Now retired, Madelaine says the major consideration when dealing with an historic home is that it is not a museum providing a controlled environment for the treasures housed within.
“We have to look at it holistically. The building itself is part of the collection. Everything from the number of people coming into the house to how often and what route they take is critical to the state of the collection,” says Madelaine.
“As soon as the front door opens, you’re changing the humidity and air circulation through the house. People walk over historic carpet. There is vibration wear and tear on staircases. The watchful eyes of the housekeepers will notice someone has leaned on the back of a chair.”
Madelaine says one of the most important jobs that preventive conservation volunteers do is monitoring. Their planned cleaning cycles may sometimes see them revisit items only every two or three years.
Before an item is even touched, the team fully records its state, looks at its surface and decides whether it can withstand any cleaning. They then think about what type of cleaning they can do, depending on the material and its current state of deterioration.
Textiles are one of the hardest to clean as they are particularly vulnerable to light damage. They also degrade faster and change colour, making them much more difficult to clean without damaging them.
In recent years, specialist vacuum cleaners made in the UK that provide exceptionally low suction have been helping to manage the task. The fabrics are also protected with mesh to moderate the cleaning process.
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Madelaine says methods are being refined all the time.
“When I returned to New Zealand there were no staff to do the work required. My premise was we needed to train carefully selected volunteers to a very high level, and that’s the way it has been done, very successfully.”
Wendy Glynn is another volunteer who trained under Madelaine. The former HR manager says when entering retirement she sought volunteer work in an area she was interested in that would put her around people.
After living with her grandparents for a period during her childhood, Wendy was used to the utensils and objects of the previous generation – including coal ranges and cast-iron gem pans, and many other items still evident in the kitchen at Ewelme Cottage.
“It is detailed and intricate work – particularly when dealing with something damaged. You take your heart into your hands because you know the importance of the history and how old the piece is,” says Wendy.
She remembers a small china plate, its lattice edging crumbling as she picked it up one day. A devastating moment.
Wendy had done everything right. The failing was just a symptom of the deterioration and damage that can seep into household objects over many years.
Light, dust and humidity and the combination of these three threats readily destabilise objects. Mould growth will damage the surfaces of objects and may permanently discolour the materials, while high humidity in combination with light, oxygen and dust can accelerate the corrosion of metals.
The volunteers follow a strict regime. Once an item has been assessed for its ability to be cleaned and its condition has been recorded, it is uplifted at its strongest point and placed in a tray to be cleaned.
Ceramics and glass are treated in a similar way. After an item is brushed with a goat-hair brush, cotton wool swabs moistened with distilled water containing a drop of conservation-grade detergent are rolled over the surface. The process is repeated with distilled water only, and the item is finally left to air dry.
Whether the item is glazed or not, or has been hand painted, determines its treatment.
“If there are chips or if the glaze is damaged, you can’t put water on it. We need to do the full inspection first to know what is safe to do with the item. It’s not a case of filling up the sink and tipping it in,” says Jane.
Jane remembers cleaning some lace curtains at Alberton in Auckland, a Category-1-listed homestead. The process took two days. The curtains were fully supported by Mylar, a polyester film, and placed in a purpose-made shallow bath where they were gently agitated in distilled water and conservation detergent. This removed much of the acidity and dirt.
The distilled water was then changed and the curtains were finally air-dried using dehumidification. The whole process was completed under the watchful eye of Madelaine.
The volunteers have uncovered a few items the different families have repurposed in resourceful ways. The earthenware crock they were working on in the kitchen at Ewelme Cottage, for example, had a cotton reel screwed in place for a handle that had obviously broken over time.
“It’s interesting because somebody made this a very long time ago,” says Jane, “and they resolved a problem. It all helps to build a picture of how the people in these homes lived. In working to preserve these items, we are also working to preserve their stories.”
1 Wendy Glynn cleans the lid of a jar in the kitchen.
A repurposed cotton reel has been used at some point in history to repair the lid of the jar.
2 Wendy Dickinson cleans a small chest made from native New Zealand timbers.
3 A china dish is brushed before the delicate process of cleaning starts.
4 After being gently brushed, ceramics are cleaned using distilled water containing drops of conservation-grade detergent.
5 Jane Finnemore,
Preventive Conservation
Team Leader, cleans a decorative china ewer.
6 Wendy Glynn cleans a photograph of Partingtons
Mill that hangs on the wall at Ewelme Cottage.
