Architectural colour at Stowe; recent discoveries by the National Trust

Abstract

This paper will present recent discoveries made in the employment of colour in the castles managed by the National Trust in England. The castles of our ancestors were painted and coloured in a way that was rich and refined: i.e. the delicate use of the painting technique, faux-bois, on the uprights of the window frames of Lyme Park in Cheshire (c. 1730) or the gildings of the sash windows of Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire (1765). In the case of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, we used a honey-coloured limewash for the walls of the principal house and the many temples of the park to restore the uniformity of colouration and as a way to imitate the precious Portland stone carving. As well, in the garden, the superb Prussian-blue doors of the Temple of Concord and Victory, with their unexpected gilding, illustrates the intensity and the spectacular effect of the use of colour in the architecture of the eighteenth century.

Keywords

• brick
• restoration
• reinstatement
• limewash
• ochre
• joinery