JAMES GRASBY: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast.
In the last episode, we travelled to Bexley Heath to Red
House. Once the home to the famous designer William Morris.
In this mini episode, we'll be discovering the secret creations
hidden there.
ROBYNN FINNEY: I am Robynn Finney and I am the House and
Gardens Manager at the National Trust, Red House.
So we are currently standing in William and Jane Morris's
bedroom at Red House.
JAMES GRASBY: Oh my word, this is extraordinary. I mean, I feel
like I've walked in to the corner of a medieval chapel in a
parish church somewhere in, in England.
What is this? It's some medieval fakery, tomfoolery and fun. What
is it?
ROBYNN FINNEY: Well, in a way all of the decoration in the
house is to some extent medieval fakery. But yeah you would be
definitely right to put a church analogy on this.
We are looking at a very exciting discovery that was
discovered in 2013 behind a wardrobe.
In this room there had always been a wardrobe covering this
wall, 1950s wardrobe.
What you could see behind one of the shelves were one figure. So
there was definitely one figure there.
So we thought we remove the wardrobe. We'll take this
opportunity to do some investigation thinking that we
would just be uncovering it and finding one figure.
And the conservators worked through January and February
because that's when we're closed, it's absolutely freezing
in this house, painstaking work.
What we found as the work went on, figure after figure.
So we've ended up with five figures on this wall.
But at this point, you have got big blobs of poly filler in it.
You've got wallpaper still coming up.
We found this text at the bottom of it. And I mean, you try and
read it now, I'm sure you can't read what it says.
But you know, this is kind of social media in action and how
our visitors and supporters really feed into our knowledge.
Former House Manager James Breslin, took a photo of the
text.
He put it on social media. Overnight somebody from America
had got back and said that's from Genesis.
So obviously, our curatorial team then looked into it.
Absolutely right.
And suddenly it all made sense. So we are looking at the story
of Genesis painted on the wall of William and Jane's bedroom. "
GENERIC: Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild
animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God
really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? We may
eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God did say, you
must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the
garden and you must not touch it."
ROBYNN FINNEY: So from left to right, you have got Adam, you
have got a tree with a serpent around it and you have Eve
recoiling from the serpent.
You then have a man holding an ark in the middle, Noah, Rachel
and Jacob.
And can you just see his little ladder coming up in the corner
there? So suddenly it makes sense! It's Genesis! Yes, you're
absolutely right. And then we could understand the wall
painting a lot better. "
GENERIC: She took some and ate it. She also gave some to her
husband who was with her and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of
them were opened and they realized they were naked. So
they sewed fig leaves together."
ROBYNN FINNEY: It may not be the most obvious choice to have on
the wall of your bedroom. But that is what we've got.
But we'd always been kind of why Genesis? Why Genesis in your
bedroom?
So the brand new piece of research that has helped us
piece together why we have Genesis in the bedroom is our
curator Tessa Wild has discovered in an Arthurian story
of Sir Degrevant that a very in depth description of his
bedroom. "
GENERIC: Her bed was of azure,
With tester and celure,
With a bright bordure
Compassed full clean
And all a story, as it was,
Of Yodyne and Amadus;
Perrye in ilka place,
And poppinjays of green.
The scutcheons of many a knight,
Of gold and Cyprus was in dight;
Broad Bezants and bright,
And true -loves between. "
ROBYNN FINNEY: And inside Sir Degrevant's Bedroom is a hanging
with the characters from Genesis on it.
So the thinking now is that the idea and the decoration of the
bedroom was that you were actually stepping into a scene
from Sir Degrevant and from an Arthurian legend.
You have areas where the the figures stop quite briefly or
where a tree looks very skinny.
It's designed to look like draping fabric. So the fabric
goes up and then it would have been pinned up and pinned.
So you will see folds in the fabric where the the people or
the trees kind of fold inwards.
It's had wallpaper on it, it has had poly filler in it. It has
had a wardrobe in front of it.
So we can't read those lines and that fluidity in the fabric as
they would have then.
But- so everything's reversible. It was then touched up with
watercolour, which is why we have this room blacked out just
to help visitors be able to read it slightly better because it
had been so damaged.
JAMES GRASBY: Thanks for listening to this mini episode
of the National Trust podcast.
If you've been enjoying the series so far, please give us a
rating or a review on Apple podcasts.
And don't forget to subscribe to the series to hear next month's
episode where Alan Power will be your guide through the peaceful,
exotic and playful garden of Glendurgan in Cornwall.
Until then from me, James Grasby. Goodbye.