Christ the Consoler Church, Skelton cum Newby, North Yorkshire

Conservation of the altar frontal at Christ the Consoler, Skelton cum Newby

Many of our churches are noted not only for their architecture and history, but also contain fine examples of design and craftsmanship. One such piece is the altar frontal set which belongs to Christ the Consoler in North Yorkshire.
Built in 1871 this beautiful church and its contents were designed as a single piece by William Burgess. The decorative altar frontal forms a focal point in the chancel and is of exceptional design and workmanship. The background fabric is deep red silk velvet with a strong design of birds and decorative scrolls employing a variety of techniques and materials, fake gemstones, pearls and patterned metal discs.
A condition report was commissioned from specialist textile conservator May Berkouwer, and in 2007 the frontal was transported to her workshop for repair. As well as being very dusty and dirty, wear and tear had caused threads to loosen and splits and small holes to form. Tarnishing had also darkened the gold thread embroidery and many of the fake pearls were missing spoiling the overall effect.

At the workshop the frontal was cleaned by careful vacuuming including the use of a micro suction pump. The gold thread embroidery was then cleaned further by swabbing with cotton wool buds dampened with Industrial Methylated Spirits (IMS). Although this treatment did improve the appearance by removing the loose soiling and accumulated dust, it could not lift the tarnishing from the gold threads. 

The bottom fringe was very dirty so after vacuuming, tests were carried out on small areas to see which wet methods would work without causing the colours to bleed. Soaking in IMS followed by blotting with clean blotting paper proved the best method and when repeated several times removed the worst of the soiling.

After cleaning, work began to repair the damaged areas whilst retaining as much of the original material as possible. Corners which were worn through were supported from underneath, their appearance improved and further damage prevented. Loose threads and sequins were secured by stitching with fine polyester and silk threads and, in the more tricky areas, a reversible adhesive used instead. Tiny holes were patched with new matching fabric and tears repaired. The blue velvet in the quatrefoils on the hangings received intensive treatment; previous failing repairs were carefully removed and replaced with a new double layered support dyed to match. The fragments of blue silk velvet were retained, laid back in their original positions and glued. 

These intricate and delicate repairs have been beautifully executed and you have to look quite closely to see what has been done. Particularly effective was a technique called laid couched stitching where areas and fragments can be saved and are strengthened or supported by neat lines of fine stitching laid side by side.

The fringe of birds and sequins posed some of the more difficult questions regarding how far the piece should be conserved. Some of the birds had lost their gold sequins leaving the bright yellow underlying fabric on show which detracted badly from the overall design. After much discussion we decided to tone it down slightly but not replace the missing sequins. This would have been prohibitively expensive and given us another problem as they too would have been overly bright set alongside the existing tarnished ones. So instead a silk crepeline was laid on top of the bare areas and glued carefully into place again with reversible adhesive and this unobtrusive repair is just enough to stop the bright yellow from spoiling the overall effect.

Another problem that we thought hard about was whether or not to replace some or all of the missing fake pearls around the birds. Whilst again we did not want to carry out a full scale reconstruction, so many were missing and formed such an important part of the overall design that we eventually decided on a compromise and replaced those on the front panel, but left the sides as found as these tend to be seen less often. 

Now work is complete the frontal is due to be returned to the church in summer 2009. A day for Trust Supporters is also being planned soon afterwards at the church when May Berkouwer will describe her work in more detail. Further details will be available on our website nearer the time.