Yippeee!!! Hinton House state bed tester is installed!

The steel bracket installed and bolted to a joist and RSJ in the ceiling void for the suspension hook, being fitted in this picture.

The suspension hook.

The tester about to be raised to height on Genie lifts.

On its way up.

Connected to the ceiling with the "angel rods".

The tester is supported also by a substantial wall bracket.

The stunning damask and ribbon within the tester.

A big thank you to Tim Martin of Context Engineering for the manufacture of the suspension metalwork and curtain rail and help with the installation.

The bed frame has been assembled under the tester. Decisions need to be made about the next stages of the project, such as specifics as the height of the headboard. I think we had better get on with fitting a mattress and support so that Adrian here can have a proper kip. Helping to assemble the frame must have left him a bit cream crackered.

Posted by Ian Fraser

Hinton House state bed re-construction project update

Copy of the cornice, delivered and it looks fantastic. The carving and carved curves of the original cornices has been faithfully copied by carver Mike Howden. Jon Wray, joiner, undertook the manufacture of the structural works, to which the carvings are attached, and mouldings such as the very bold cove, technically quite a challenge to make. As with the tester, whose original construction left rather a lot to be desired, so it is with the original cornices. Brilliant carving, but rickety structural work. Jon Wray, working with Mike Howden, devised an understructure that is very light, but rigid. Like the consolidation work on the tester the new constructional design is essential for rigidity, but unseen.

Meannwhile, work progresses on the construction of the oak bed frame. State beds of this era follow a standard pattern, and it is the state bed at Dyrham Park that has been used as the example to follow.

Conserving the textiles involves, in part, careful cleaning to remove years of dust.

The tester has been turned over so that the textile conservator can undertake consolidation and cleaning of the surviving textiles, and disguise areas of loss.

The ceiling void above where the tester is to be suspended has been assessed, and the requisite support structure designed. There is a massive RSJ steel beam to attach to, a beam that was added years ago to support the weight of the showcases in the room above the Crimson Bedroom. The pilot hole is being marked in the picture left. The RSJ is on the left side of the picture on the right. The drill bit can just be seen between the tape measure and the RSJ.

And one very dead bird near the point of tester suspension. Poor thing must have found its way in through a disused sealed up chimney in the room, with a gap down in the void, and gotten trapped. All chimneys were capped when Temple Newsam was re-roofed in the late 1990s. Not the first dead bird I have come across in Leeds' historic houses, I hope it is the last.

Posted by Ian Fraser

Willow Pattern Take Two

As a ceramics graduate I was somewhat surprised to discover my ignorance of the story of the Willow Pattern. I stumbled across the tale whilst carrying out my internship on the documentation of the pearlware collection at Temple Newsam. The now familiar blue and white Chinese scene, created by Josiah Spode in the late 18th century to imitate Oriental porcelain, proceeded to flood the market and appeared on a whole host of earthenware, from egg cups to potted meat dishes. The legend of the pattern had passed me by but fear not, I shall fill you in..

Willow Pattern PLate, Spode, Late 1700s, LEEAG. 1969.11.86

A Mandarin customs officer, who lived in the large two storey temple centre-right of the image, grew rich whilst his secretary Chang did all the work. Amongst rumours of bribery and corruption, the officer was granted retirement by the emperor, and he withdrew to his lovely house taking with him his secretary and Koong-se, his beautiful daughter. Chang and the Mandarin's daughter soon fell in love and continued to meet in secret after Chang had finished the work and been dismissed. They knew their love could never be as they were from different classes and her father had forbidden their relationship.

The Mandarin imprisoned his daughter in the smaller house next to the main building, enforcing the separation with a fence to keep them apart, and then betrothed her to his wealthy duke friend Ta-Jin who came bearing a box of wedding jewels. Obviously ancient Chinese grooms and fathers-of-the-bride are no different from their modern Western counterparts, and they set about getting drunk before the nuptials. Taking their chance, Chang and Koong-se raced across the bridge to freedom, pursued by her whip-brandishing father. Evading him, they sailed on a boat to a far off island and settled there happily.

Luckily they had remembered to grab the box of jewels before their escape, which they sold, using the money to buy the island and build a home. Chang wrote a book on agriculture and gained a great reputation which sounds lovely, but unfortunately this success was to be his downfall. His fame led the angry jilted Ta-Jin straight to his door, who then had him arrested and killed. Koong-se was so distraught at the death of her partner that she ran to her home and set it alight, dying in the flames. Koong-se and Chang were reunited in death, transformed into the two doves which make the Willow pattern so distinctive, the fated lovers flying together for eternity; the willow tree at the heart of the pattern signifying sadness.

Blue and white transfer printed Chinoiserie was hugely popular from the moment it was manufactured, and though it may flit in and out of fashion it won't go away. The Willow pattern has come to symbolise an entire era of British ceramic production. It still continues to inform and inspire. As in all contemporary art mediums, ceramicists draw inspiration from the past. Two relatively recent Leeds Museums and Galleries acquisitions which clearly demonstrate this are Robert Dawson's plates, 'Bridge' and 'Border', from the After Willow series designed for Wedgwood in 1995.

Bridge and Border by Robert Dawson for Wedgewood, LEEAG.2006.13.1&2

These plates, which directly reference the pattern, reinterpret the familiar design and present it back to us in a fresh way, encouraging us to look again at the 18th century ware side by side with the new. Skewed and slanted, they could be dismissed as mere copies of an original, but is that not what the first Willow pattern itself was created for - imitation and suggestion? To me, these pieces represent the importance of adding modern work to museum collections, they have such value in moving collections forward, challenging us to create new connections and references. Seeing them in the pottery store cabinets placed next to the 200 year old earthenware is so much more rewarding than only viewing them in a contemporary gallery setting with no reference to their origin.

I love the sentiment of the Willow and its enduring imagery, the timeless story. Once I knew its history, I connected to it and got so much more from it than taking it for face value. Now I know this tragic story, its easy to distinguish the pattern from other similar variants. Imagine my delight upon finding my own small piece of ceramic history in an antiques shop; a marked Middlesbrough Pottery Willow pattern plate, cracked and unwanted and mine for 25p. A real bargain.

By Helen Pickles, Ceramics Intern, Temple Newsam House

World's biggest 3D Jigsaw?

A bold claim maybe but a big puzzle nonetheless. My engineering volunteer team Andy and Gill found these rusting cast iron leviathans stored outside whilst auditing, apparently in no particular order but next to other bits of machinery including a press, a rolling mill and a couple of large boilers. The first image appeared to be a lineshaft with a set of pulleys and two flywheels, not a common arrangement. The second picture shows, hidden in the undergrowth, a large cast iron disc with rubber inserted around the rim and a central square sockle hole. The third picture seemed to be two curved arms with bearing rests at one end. After Gill and Andy brought the audit sheets back and i was trying to reconcile what we found with accessioned items I had several trips down to try and figure out the puzzling bits and pieces and see if i could work out what they were part of. they certainly didnt seem to be part of the same thing.

I decided to have a closer look at the press because we had identified it as a blanking press made by Greenwood & Batley of Leeds. It was used at the Royal Mint in Haverfordwest but I still couldnt work out how all the bits could be part of it.

I couldnt see any power source for this press, it had no motor or pulleys for belt drive, and the other thing that struck me was the sockle on the top of the screw thread, which was square. taking measurements showed that it fitted the hole in the centre of the disc with the rubber inserts perfectly. this still seemed odd though, a horizontal flywheel? and what was the rubber for? I measured the outer diameter of the disk and then took a closer look at the gap between the two flywheels on the lineshaft - again, it fitted perfectly. and then a metaphorical lightbulb lit up and i realised how the press worked and how the pieces fitted together. The two curved arms fitted on the flat rectangular sections at the top of the press, they supported the lineshaft with the two vertical flywheels whilst the other flywheel fitted horizontally between them on the top of the screw, creating what is known as a friction drive. The leather inserts would give enough adhesion to allow the disk and the screw to be driven downwards to press out the coins or blanks but once slipped out of gear it could be skidded back into its original by the lever mounted near the sockle. Using a friction drive meant that the press screw could move in two directions without having to invest in a complex gearing system or reversing the power source, and it turned out to be a very common and still used drive for screw presses.

As an added bonus I looked up Greenwood & Batley screw press on Google and found this, the very same press in action at the Royal Mint!

Keeping the Balance: a 2500 year old coin

The oldest coin that I’ve had the privilege to look at in the numismatic collections at Leeds Museum Discovery Centre has been preying on my mind since I first saw it several weeks ago, waiting to be photographed in its drawer.
This tiny coin is only 12 mm across, much smaller than a five pence piece, and much thinner too when you feel it. What first intrigued me about the coin was its ambiguous antiquity – its card label said “?5th century BC” – and I was struck by that. I had never (knowingly) held anything as old, and I have been thinking a lot more about where this piece came from how it ended up here. What makes the piece even more interesting to me are the animals shown on the obverse: a goose and a salamander. The goose is turning its neck round so it can look at the salamander and the Greek capital letter Η (theta).

A little research at http://www.forumancientcoins.com/ told me that this coin is of a type that was produced at a town called Eion between 500 and 480 BC and is called a trihembiol.

Eion was a town in western Thrace that had been established as a trading post by Persian traders in the sixth century BC. Under Athenian expansion in the fifth century BC, Eion was seen as a strategically important port and soon after 476 BC the Persians had been removed and Athenian settlers arrived.

What is most relevant to our numismatic understanding of the piece comes from this tussle between Persian and Athenian powers. The quality of a coinage is based on its weight and on the fineness of the metal and these small coins from Thrace fitted both Athenian and Persian weight and fineness standards so could be used for trade with both commercial powers. Persian coins weighed around 3.85g; fractions (quarters of Athenian staters) weighed between 3.6–4.4g. The trihembiols still retained their own local identity through the distinct iconography on them.

The foundation of the city of Amphipolis by the settled Athenians put paid to the coinage and indeed the city of Eion, and by 440 BC it was uninhabited.

What is unusual about these trihembiols is that they are often found pierced with a hole so that they could be worn and are found, not just in the area near Eion, but across southern Thrace. Were these coins kept by people who came from Eion, unable to be used as currency, but perhaps carrying an apotropaic power of their own?

Just as the salamander balances the goose in the coin design, so too this fascinating local coinage of ancient Greece kept the balance between two major empires who were vying for control of the city. Producing this currency meant allegiance did not have to be formerly asserted to either power and at least a semblance of independence could be maintained. From this you can imagine the day-to-day lives of people using three different currencies with the threat of war constantly looming.

What began as curiosity becomes a quite melancholy window into the past.

Accession Number: LEEDM.N.2010.0004.0030

Author: Lucy Moore, Leeds Museums and Galleries Intern 2011

Taste our new exhibition at Abbey House

The new exhibition at Abbey House for 2011 is "Taste: The Culture and Politics of Food" which opened on 22nd January and runs for the whole of the year. It offers a mouth-watering spread of food related objects and looks at the many issues and contoversies around what we eat, where our food comes from and who produces it.

The logo and the whole look of the exhibition were designed by students from Leeds Metropolitan University, School of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Bobby Morse, Andy Knox and Greg Michell won the competition to design the exhibition in November and then had to make their vision a reality in time for the exhibition to open last week.



This is the second year we have worked in partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University and it has been a fantastic experience both for the museum and the students.

Andy, Greg & Bobby at the opening

Visitors at the opening admiring themselves in the fat & thin mirrors, which are an eye-catching (and mind-boggling) feature of the exhibition.

As well as a wealth of wierd and wonderful obejcts from the collection, there is also a chance to view some fascinating archive film footage courtesy of the Yorkshire Film Archive, including a Headingley fish and chip shop and the canteen at Parkers Mill.