I spent this week with the Preventive Conservation team who are responsible for the care of all of the items on display at Hampton Court. This means that they are responsible for everything from housekeeping to pest inspection to making sure that the barriers are in the right place so you can't touch any of the tapestries.
This week was very 'chatty' in that I spend a lot of time having things explained to me, sat in on meetings, or watching someone as they did something (while explaining to me what they are doing). On Friday one of the conservators was quite apologetic that we were doing some straight forward cleaning, but honestly it was nice to actually be doing something (it is also much warmer to be working in a cold palace than standing around talking).
The most exciting part of the week was when one of the senior conservators took me around the palace and explained some of the specific challenges they faced in those rooms. In Queen Mary's Closet, she went to adjust one of the blinds and the entire set of double roller blinds came crashing down! Fortunately it didn't hit us; unfortunately it put some significant gouges in the wood shutters.... so now I've seen how to fill out an incident report at the palace.
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