Lyme Park tapestry restoration work begins

"Painstaking" work has begun to restore a 17th Century Flemish tapestry that is starting to fray after being on display for 200 years.

The Cadmus Sent in Search of Europa tapestry was on show in the Stag's Parlour at Lyme Park in Stockport, but is starting to come apart.

The heirloom's weight and sunlight had caused significant damage, its caretakers the National Trust said.

Restoration is likely to cost £150,000 and will take more than 1,000 hours.

The National Trust, which manages Lyme Park that featured as Pemberley in the BBC's 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, said it was the oldest tapestry of its kind it looked after.

The tapestry is part of a larger series, three of which are displayed at Lyme Park, which tell the classical story of Prince Cadmus, the founder of the city of Thebes.

Conservators said it was difficult and delicate work that required scaffolding to prise the tapestry off the Velcro it was attached to on the wall then it had to be wound around a roller without further damaging the historical relic.

Kat Croxford, collections and house manager at Lyme Park, said: "It's starting to pull apart the stitching so we've got splits."

She said although the colours had faded once it was restored and washed "all the colours will come back even brighter".

Rosamunde Weatherall, one of the conservators working on the two-year project, said: "We will strip it down, surface clean it and send it off then to a facility in Belgium.

"It's like a large shower cubicle and it's really efficient at moving the dirt and then it will come back to the studio and we'll put it on a frame add a support layer to the back and that's when we'll start doing a specialist conservation stitching."

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