Conservation journeys at Falkland Palace 

An internal wall between the Chapel Royal and the tapestry gallery was identified for further investigation. Wall painting conservator Karen Dundas ACR worked at height checking for historic and new water ingress to determine the condition of the painted scheme in the Chapel. On the other side of the wall, the 17th-century tapestry set, which has been at Falkland Palace since 1906, was required to come down to allow for sampling and to open up sections of the wall to allow for visual inspections. 

Removing all six tapestries from public tours to allow access to the investigatory works was not an easy decision. Still, using the situation as an opportunity to ‘rest’ them from light and their own weight could offer some advantages to the unique, large tapestries’ longer-term care. 

Over the years, the tapestries have undergone remedial work to improve support and display. Hung by velcro to batons from the internal wall, they were already weakened through age, so they could no longer bear any additional strain through accelerated chemical deterioration and additional weight from sustained higher humidity levels.  

So began a series of object removal and relocation, cleaning and covering sensitive collections once the property closed at the end of the 2024 season. We needed to remove items on loan that we could no longer sustain adequate environments for and create space for scaffolding in the narrow tapestry gallery. We installed de-humidifiers to ‘condition’ the tapestries before removing and packing them. We knew to ensure the woven wool and silk fibres would be in optimum condition before we started rolling them.

We worked with textile and tapestry specialist conservator Sophie Younger ACR, who developed a system that allowed us to roll the tapestries in situ vertically. The system utilised a trolley to hold a rotating roller with a four-metre-long tapestry tube. 

Sophie came with experience in large tapestry removal. However, with the largest of our tapestries an impressive 7.5 x 3.26 metres, we ensured we had staff on hand to assist. This provided a unique opportunity to offer our Collection Care team and Bute Conservation intern additional training in rolling and wrapping large textiles.

Watch a short time-lapse video of the tapestry being deinstalled at Falkland Palace. 

Providing professional development to property staff by the Trust’s and freelance conservators is a large part of how we maintain and impart current best conservation practices and ensure the collection teams who oversee the day-to-day care at all our properties can add to their prior experience.

After much preparation, measuring, walking movement routes, and bringing in art handlers to make protective covers for items that were to stay in the Tapestry gallery, I brought Collection Care teams from Edinburgh and East together over a week to help prepare tubes that the tapestries would be rolled onto with a barrier film of aluminium foil and a layer of acid-free tissue.

More experienced team members undertook in situ repairs, sewing pre-dyed supportive netting that Sophie had prepared and pinned. All the Collection Care staff experienced the process of taking down a tapestry, cleaning the other side whilst unrolling it face-side down, checking for pests of concern, and then re-rolling the tapestries sandwiched between sheets of acid-free tissue onto the prepared tubes again, this time right-side out, finally wrapping them in breathable, inert, pH-neutral Tyvek fabric.

Amy Meeson, Visitor Services Assistant, Collection Care, Falkland Palace, said: ‘Working with Sophie over the past few years on the Falkland tapestries has been a wonderful learning experience. All our past acquired knowledge had to be applied, and new skills had to be learnt. Whether that was assessing weaknesses on the tapestry surface and stitching support patches in place or rolling the textile for long-term storage, the scale of the task was massive.’ 

The tapestries, all now off the wall, will be moved into storage, where we can keep them in a secure, controlled environment until they can be reinstated at Falkland Palace. One of the smaller tapestries at Hill of Tarvit will still be displayed in a display case during the 2025 season.  

Investigatory work and further building works are planned throughout 2025. You can see and hear more about the conservation works we are undertaking at Falkland Palace when the property reopens on 1 March.