Seagrass and fish glue: principal practices at Culross

Culross Palace, with its orange pantile roof and rich yellow ochre lime-washed walls, is one of the Trust’s earliest acquired properties, purchased in 1932. Only a short trip from Edinburgh, it transports you to a time of artisans, industry and trading by sea. The tiny rooms and painted interiors wonderfully evoke 17th-century Scotland, but they require a sympathetic and considered approach to their care and maintenance. We often find ourselves looking to the materials and techniques that were applied in past centuries.

This winter, we turned our attention to the floor matting in some of the rooms. Fitted decades ago, it was designed to mimic the kind of floor mats Sir George Bruce and his family would have used in the early 17th century. However, the seagrass had become worn, torn and was coming away from the walls. It was slowly unravelling, and we were concerned it would become a trip hazard.

With over seven rooms to re-floor, we decided to approach the project in two phases – the main rooms of the Palace took priority. We have a four-post bed on loan from the National Museums of Scotland (NMS), which is in the Bedchamber for the Principal Stranger. As the bed would have to be moved to allow the flooring to be laid, we decided to simultaneously carry out the conservation recommendations of NMS consultant furniture conservator Sarah Gerrish.

First things first! After packing and decanting the furniture from the three rooms, we had to carefully move the fragile (but very heavy) bed. This enabled Alisdair Flynn, a traditional upholsterer and interior furnisher based in Edinburgh, to remove the old matting and fit the new flooring. ‘It’s not every day that you receive a call from the palace’ recalled Alisdair after Culross staff contacted him to enquire whether he might be able to help supply and fit new seagrass matting.

At first, we thought we should dismantle the bed to facilitate work in the space, but on closer inspection it was determined by Sarah that it would be safer for the bed to be kept complete, to minimise risk of damage to its large canopy. This meant that our regular removal company needed to move the bed in such a sequence, over a couple of weeks, that allowed Alisdair to lift the old matting, prepare the floor and fit the new matting.

However, upon lifting the first piece of old matting, he was immediately presented with the challenge of removing decades-old hardened glue.

Working on one half of the room at a time, Alisdair had to adapt to the challenges of working in a 400-year-old coal and salt merchant’s house. Nothing seemed to dampen his enthusiasm, even when Storm Arwen arrived in late November, seemingly finding every opening of the dwelling’s loosely fitted windows and draughty doors.

Scraper at the ready, he gently removed the old adhesive from the floor surface and revealed some fine looking Douglas fir floorboards. They are not ancient – perhaps from the 1930s – but they were beautifully laid out by some long-forgotten highly skilled carpenters.