Wallpaper conservator Allyson McDermott pieces together tiny clues to recreate centuries-old designs, thanks to a mix of traditional techniques, modern technology and creative thinking
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'I love something that smacks of a challenge,' says Allyson McDermott with delight. Her appetite for the onerous is fortunate because the wallpaper specialist and conservator is as much a detective as she is an artisan, often recreating entire interior schemes with the smallest scrap of paper as her starting point. The fruits of her labour can be seen at Brighton Pavilion, the Palace of Westminster and a string of National Trust properties, though of course you would never know it. What she creates is a historic replica, indistinguishable from what was there originally. The work of her practice ranges from wallpaper __design and printing to conservation, restoration and the hanging of wallpapers.
Allyson trained and worked as a fine-art conservator, but it was a rather humdrum event in 1982 that set her on the path to wallpaper conservation. 'I received a panicked phone call from the owners of Stagshaw House in Northumbria,' she recalls. 'A bathtub had overflowed, water had bucketed through the ceiling and the beautiful Zuber wallpaper in the room below now resembled a furry carpet in shades of black and pink.' At the time, wallpaper conservators were few and far between, but as Allyson had previously worked on the owners' watercolour collection, she was their first port of call. 'We used exactly the same methodology as we would for works on paper, just writ large,' she says.
A project at Temple Newsam museum near Leeds followed and proved to be particularly significant. With the support of the curator, Anthony Wells-Cole, and generous funding from the Department of Trade and Industry, Allyson was able to spend 18 months learning how to flock, hand-carve blocks for printing and analyse historic pigments. By studying the museum's collection of historic wallpapers, she could make sense of the original processes, materials and designs.
And so the projects began to roll in. When Uppark House was ravaged by fire in 1989, the National Trust turned to Allyson. 'We conserved the little that was saved from the fire and then we remade the rest to match,' she says. The wallpaper had to look exactly as it did the day before the blaze tore through the house; this meant recreating all blemishes.
'What we work with is infinitely precious,' she says. 'You simply cannot make mistakes.' Everything is underpinned by scientific research and a robust methodology, the results of which must be absolutely reversible, as is standard conservation practice. Allyson operates out of an old milking parlour on the edge of the Forest of Dean, but travels the length and breadth of the country to conduct investigations and surveys. Her brother Adrian manages several site projects and is currently heading up one packed to the gills with William Morris papers - Emery Walker's House at 7 Hammersmith Terrace, which will open again to the public in April.
For Allyson, work often begins with standing in an empty room and asking it to 'speak' to her. However, when an interior is not immediately forthcoming, she knows what to look for. 'If I'm on the ground floor of a Georgian house, it will be a flock or damask. If I'm in the first-floor private apartments, it's more likely to be a whole suite of Chinese paper. But in a house built after 1860, the ceiling and panels can offer helpful clues as they were often papered, too.' No shred of wallpaper is too small for her to analyse and build a scheme from: 'I've found pieces inside cupboards, down chimneys and tucked behind skirting boards, architraves and dado rails. I've never been to a house and not discovered something.'
Once pigments, papers, varnishes and methodologies have been identified, the pattern will be drawn, transferred on to the computer and then sent to the block cutters. The blocks are then finished by hand. In the meantime, pigments are ground and applied with copies of eighteenth-century brushes. 'My brush maker was so thrilled by the challenge, he gave me the first batch for free,' says Allyson with glee.
Every so often a little creative thinking is required. A nut-kibbling machine was borrowed from a muesli factory in Saffron Walden and repurposed to cut the perfect texture of flock for Uppark House. A Victorian laundry mangle proved just the ticket for achieving exactly the right level of embossing for a Pugin wallpaper at the Houses of Parliament.
That is not to say Allyson is averse to modern technology: digital advances are invaluable. For instance, if you have fallen for a Chinese wallpaper in a country house, a high- definition photograph can be taken and printed as a facsimile copy. Proportions can be altered, figures moved and an aged look achieved with the addition of imperfections.
Over the years, Allyson has built up an extraordinary archive of original papers, carved wooden blocks and digital images, which, until recently, languished in her studio. But now she has launched her own collection of 18 papers drawn from past projects. It includes a nineteenth-century flock discovered at St Giles House in Dorset, an eighteenth-century flock inspired by a silk damask at Temple Newsam and a floral chinoiserie found at Gunsgreen House in Eyemouth.
Designs in her Portfolio Collection can be recreated in infinite textures and colour variations - the original hues can be anathema to modern eyes. The wallpapers reflect the marriage between past and present Allyson has so seamlessly achieved through her work; each one is rich not only with colour and texture, but also with the unbridled delight their maker has found in these historic patterns.
allysonmcdermott.com | emerywalker.org.uk