Icing on the Cake

A quick post this week, as once again we’ve hit one of those extremely busy periods of the rebuild. Last weekend’s open garden event and exhibition went down extremely well. We staged a pop-up event in what was the drawing room and hall, displaying some of the Brown family’s photos from the days after the fire in 2019, alongside professional images taken during the rebuild by Darren Washington and Sarah Peart. We also included some of the interesting finds we’ve kept, such as a stone flower from one of the urns that top Betley Court, and part of the collapsed chimney.

One of the most popular exhibits was the ‘rogues’ gallery’ – where we pinned up photos of our tradies and craftspeople. Visitors seemed genuinely impressed at how many skilled people it takes to put a beloved old house back together! There’ll be another chance to see the exhibition on 16^th July 2023. Tickets coming soon.

Our 'rogues gallery' of craftpeople and tradies

Meanwhile, the rebuild of the external envelope is coming along. Now that Midland Conservation Ltd have completed their work, we have a new main contractor on site, the local family firm J.T Farmer & Son, and it is lovely to have three generations, Jim, Mark and Sam working on the house. One of their first jobs has been connecting the guttering downspouts to the drains, as for three-hundred years, it seems the water simply emptied onto the footings of the house! How we didn’t have more problems with water in the cellar, I’ll never know!

Is it a new moat/ - no! Just a trench for the new drainage system!

Nigel and I have been getting our hands dirty too. We’ve been working on repairing and repainting the decorative stonework feature on the east face of Betley Court, facing Main Road. Currently hidden behind the scaffolding, Betley Court has five ornamental urns.

A new replacement flower and stem on top of the original urn

Following our philosophy of repairing where we can and only replacing where something is irretrievable, a master stonemason has recreated sections of each urn damaged in the fire. We will leave the urns unpainted, but are gilding the top flowers with gold leaf as a way to finish them off.

I learned how to gild when I worked for the late Professor Godfrey Brown in his antiques gallery, so it is a huge privilege to be high up on Betley Court restoring the urns. It’s like putting the icing on a cake!

Gilding in progress

Nigel preparing the surface for painting

Nigel, meanwhile is rubbing down the Craddock coat of arms, centre of the portico at the front of the house. John Craddock founded what was to become Betley Court back in 1716, and it is his family emblem, with its gilded bear’s head, above a knight’s helmet, and a strange face.

Craddock's family emblem, the chained bear, looking somewhat the worse for wear! This will get the gold leaf treament too.

There’s other symbolism too; grapes, a daisy-type flower, wheat sheafs (known as garbs in heraldry), and a blue chevron. I need to do some research to find out what it all signifies, in the meantime, in the words of Godfrey Brown, “More power to your elbow, Nigel!”

All best wishes

Ladybird Su