At the time of his death Henry VIII owned 2,500 of these beautiful and expensive hangings, which were used to furnish his many palaces.

They were looked after by the Lord Chamberlain in a department known as the Royal Wardrobe which cared for the contents of the royal palaces. Tapestries were extremely valuable and so were treated very carefully, usually only displayed when the monarch was in residence.  The rest of the time they were carefully rolled and stored away to prevent them from fading and insect damage. Some records suggest that they were cleaned with dried breadcrumbs and brushes.

Hampton Court Palace was opened to the public by Queen Victoria for the first time in 1837 Henry’s most lavish set of tapestries, the Abraham series, took pride of place in his Great Hall, the space for which they had been commissioned over 400 years earlier.  By the end of the 19th century many of the objects were showing signs of wear and the need to repair them became obvious.

The year 2012 will mark the 100th anniversary of textile conservation at Hampton Court Palace. On the 17 April 1912 King George V commissioned the workshop of William Morris & Co to begin the work of restoring the tapestries. Because so many were in a fragile condition, a workshop was set up in the State Apartments under the direction of the Paris-based historian HC Marillier.

The long process of cleaning, mending and re-weaving large sections of the tapestries had begun. The preferred technique of the time was to re-weave large sections of the tapestries, removing damaged silk and wool and replacing with new threads, dyed to match. This process was called restoration.

Work began on the Abraham tapestries in 1927, and each one took five years to complete.  In 1940 Morris & Co closed for business but Marillier, together with his small team of restorers continued to work at Hampton Court.  

Only one tapestry in the set of ten Abraham tapestries was not restored; The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek. Following ten years of painstaking work in our studios here at Hampton Court this amazing survivor is now on display in the Great Hall.

For examples of the conservation challenges faced by the team click here.