Treasures of the past: Art secrets of the country's most beautiful historic houses

10 May 2023

Hidden Treasures of the National Trust is a new six-part BBC series that goes back in time at the UK's most beautiful and historic houses. Meet the dedicated experts who look after treasured objects at the three elegant Midlands properties featured in the first episode.

Curators Charlotte Holmes and John Chu examine the fascinating Brownlow portrait in Belton House

A portrait of Elizabeth I is on display in Hardwick Hall

Sitting high on a Derbyshire hilltop and surrounded by 2,000 acres of parkland, this spectacular house was personally commissioned in 1590 by the formidable Bess of Hardwick.

It's like when you tune a violin string, the frequency of the canvas changes slightly.

Rebecca Hellen, Paintings Conservator

According to Rebecca Hellen, Senior National Conservator of Paintings at the National Trust, Bess was “almost like the Queen of the North”.

“She's a woman who rises from quite a middle-class background through her sheer force of character, intelligence and several marriages, to a very high position in British society,” she says.

One of Bess’s most valuable friendships was with Elizabeth I and, among more than 8,000 precious artworks and artefacts in Hardwick, a portrait of Elizabeth presides over the house's Long Gallery.

'Sea Monster'

Known as the ‘Sea Monster’ portrait because of the depictions of mythological sea creatures that decorate Elizabeth’s dress, the painting now faces an ocean crossing of its own.

It is going out on loan for a tour of North America, starting at the Met in New York, and conservators must ready the painting for its journey.

Although the portrait seems in good condition, UV lights that can see beyond the naked eye reveal some pockmarks in the 400-year-old paintwork.

Packaging it up in specialist crates designed for transporting artwork requires supreme care. Rebecca says that one extra measure they take is affixing a stretcher-bar lining to the back of the canvas, which works “like a kind of undergarment”.

“It creates a little air cushion, so you're just giving the painting that little bit of extra physical support,” she says.

“It's like when you tune a violin string, the frequency of the canvas changes slightly, and the amount of vibration going through just calms down a bit.”

Conservators Nicole Ryder and Rebecca Hillen examine the painting

UV lamps reveal flaws in the paintwork that are undetectable to the human eye

Another item from Hardwick featured in episode one that’s also going out on loan is the extraordinary Sea-Dog Table, which at its base has a carving of a dog’s face, a dolphin’s tail and human breasts. Here, Senior Furniture Conservator Gerry Alabone carries out painstaking work to ensure it is fit for travel.

Victorian horticulturalist James Bateman inherited a family fortune and spent it on creating a garden wonderland in the grounds of Biddulph Grange.

It features plants and objects collected from, and inspired by, countries all around the world, but as the programme discovers, one of its most important parts must be restored.

An ornate wooden bridge that originally stood in the centre of its China Garden is no longer able to hold the weight of visitors safely, so an identical replacement must be built.

The programme follows National Trust joiner Sam Tinsdeall and his team as they piece together hundreds of individually carved parts.

Originally built by local craftspeople, the bridge had spanned the lake since Victorian times but its advanced age meant it was no longer safe to cross

For the replacement bridge, joiner Sam Tinsdeall and his team created hundreds of intricate pieces that had to be slotted together

The bridge was too large to be brought in through the winding rocky pathways in one piece, so it had to be broken down into 50 sections

Head gardener Paul Walton stands alongside the freshly-painted new bridge, which is one of the last parts of a 35-year restoration project at Biddulph Grange

Built by Sir John Brownlow in the 1680s, Belton House has a world-renowned library and collections of art, silver and ceramics.

The history of the family is usually quite well documented, but when you dig beneath there are all sorts of other narratives.

Charlotte Holmes, Cultural Heritage Curator

Charlotte Holmes, Cultural Heritage Curator at the National Trust, says one of the joys of her job is “telling the histories that may have been overlooked”.

“With somewhere like Belton, the history of the family is usually quite well documented, but when you dig beneath there are all sorts of other narratives within the collection and within the archives,” she says.

One of the narratives uncovered by the programme is what emerges from the deep clean of a portrait of Sir John’s daughter, Margaret: another figure that was faded into the background.

The painting has not been cleaned since 1984, when the National Trust took over the house. Charlotte says: “As well as Margaret Brownlow, you can see in the corner, somewhat hidden in the shadows, an attendant whom, due to their dress, we believe is a servant child.”

Paintings conservator Polly Saltmarsh works on removing varnish that has accumulated over hundreds of years, to reveal the figure beneath

Senior National Curator John Chu says paintings that return after conservation treatments sometimes feel like whole new works of art. He says: “You're seeing it much closer to how it appeared in the 17th Century, and it's also just much clearer that there are two figures in the composition.”

On the left is the painting before it was treated, and on the right is the cleaned picture. For the full story of how curators strived to discover the child's identity, watch the first episode