Hello and welcome to Dyrham Park in South Gloucestershire.
Home of the Bathwayt family, built in the late 17th century.
So today we'll be going on a behind-the-scenes tour to look at the work that's been carried out
over the last three years. It includes lots of structural repairs graining, redecoration,
and re-presentation of the interior of the house.
This is the Great Hall, the focal point of the house really. The centre point of the house.
It's believed to be the core of the medieval house that stood on the site before Dyrham Park,
we know now was developed around it. It had been redecorated in the 1930s as a white scheme,
so all the joinery you can see here was white and we've now redecorated it, repaired it, and redecorated it
back to this oak graining. So all this bit appears to be timber. It is timber behind it,
soft wood timber, but it's then painted to look like oak so it looks much more rich.
We've stripped back later paint layers and then have done samples to match with that. And once
those samples were signed off then that's been then gradually painted across the rest of the room.
So to grain the whole room will take any order of three months to do.
So it's a slow and painstaking process but really highly skilled.
We investigated the original colour scheme. So we did microscopic analysis of all the
different paints and we worked with our brand licensing partner Little Greene paint
to reproduce the matching colours for the ceiling in this room.
We've also re-hung these chandeliers and they've now been
wired so they are lit electrically, and they haven't been hung in this room since 2014.
Today we're rehanging the paintings in the Great Hall including the family portraits
and this is the last stage of re-presenting the room before it opens again to visitors.
Today we're refitting the wrought iron gates to the west garden.
They've been off for six months for conservation. So the gates have been rebuilt and all the
masonry walls either side of the gates have also been conserved.
Thanks to the support of the Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport, along with Historic England and
through the Cultural Recovery Fund, we've been able to restore the gates to their former glory.
This is the Tapestry Bedchamber and in this room we've basically repaired the floor,
repaired the windows and shutters and redecorated. This was another room with a white colour scheme.
So all the panelling you can see and the chimney breast was all white, and we've now gone back to a grain scheme.
That has the appearance of walnut which is the kind of look in here which is a much warmer colour,
and now really sets off the tapestries hanging on the wall.
The work will be carrying on through the rest of the year but rooms such as this will be open from this summer.
And the Great Hall will also be open and a lot of the principal rooms. And the house is staying open throughout
the renovations so you'll be more than welcome to come along and see the work as it progresses.
This is the Gilt Leather Parlour. Conspicuous by having no gilt leather.
As part of the project we're actually commissioning new leather panels to hang on the wall so that will replace
wallpaper of the 1970s. We're now going back to a grain scheme so that's why we've got these
pink areas of undercoat, and then the brown, and then the graining goes on top.
Thanks for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed your behind-the-scenes visit to Dyrham to see all
the work that we've been undertaking. Details of how to visit can be found on our website.
And just to say thank you for your support, and the support of our partners makes this kind of
thing possible and enables us to look after places like Dyrham Park for future generations to enjoy.