Hardwick hall

On Saturday I went up  to Hardwick hall to scope out the room and add some of the props that I have made for it.
 It is a  fantastic place and I do envy Miss S and her  job I would love to work in that type of environment  better than being stuck in a grey box of an office.
I am a little bit of a history geek too i love going around old houses and museums. I was given the grand tour and some of the furniture was beautiful but terrible  garish (by today’s standards) at the same time.
Miss S works  in the conservation team at the hall  so the tour I receive was not all about dates and figures but how and when thing were done to the hall and what was being done to conserve the antiques. Little things that you would never thing of like not being able to have curtains open near specific tapestries as it fades the colour when the heating can or cannot come on because of the humidity.
The hall is shut to the public at the moment for the winter months and there were a lot of items being cleans or had just been cleaned and covered and as I was shown them I felt excited but also really nervous in case I just became clumsy all of a sudden!!!  I had this horrible image of me tripping over my own feet and crashing into display worth thousands and thousands of pounds a little like the Armstrong and Miller sketch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvQuiM4c1hY !
After the tour we went to the room that will be the wizards study and started to arrange the furniture that was in there. Some of the pieces had to stay where they were - a very large gothic looking sideboard  (looks amazing!) which took 5 people to just get it there was not going to budge with just the 2 of us! It is amazing how quickly these things take shape.  The furniture was in pace and I was finally happy with the positioning (well until I go over again and decide we need to move it all again!) we went to one of the store rooms to find the LED candles that the hall owns. I proceeded to use just about all of them in the study …after all nothing says wizard like candles!
We then went up to the attic to look for a taxidermy display case to put the 2 owls we had in. I lost count of how many stairs later we were in the attic and trying to find this case we spotted it and then had to go back downstairs to get the ladder to reach it!!
When in one of the attic rooms I was a little Weirded out by a pile of old mattresses they had stacked up, this is when Miss S informed me that when the National Trust took over the hall in the 60’s (I think) it was donated as a closed collection. Close collection means that nothing can be sold/loaned/donated or bought in (unless there is a definite connection with the hall) so they were not allowed to get rid of anything without special consent. It was all a little eerie.
7 days to go until opening and I am happy with how things are heading I spent last night making piles of scrolls for the desks and side boards and making fake books to put on the shelves.. no one will ever know! Tonight I am tackling the quills and more fake books and a clock face.  I have really enjoyed this project as it is so different than designing/prop making for the theatre, this room it interactive and things are going be looked at closely so it is all about the details whereas with the stage there is always a little bit of ley way!