This week, nine huge Christmas trees have been delivered to Harewood, ready to be decorated by our brilliant volunteers for the festive season. Seven will stay outside, but two will stand in the House: one in the Entrance Hall, one in the Gallery among Upon a Christmas Wish. Getting a 15ft Nordmann Fir through several 3ft-wide doors and rooms full of priceless furniture and interiors is certainly not a piece of (Christmas) cake…

But first, let us take you back a few weeks to 10 September. At Stockeld Park, a few miles from Harewood, two members of the Harewood House Trust visitor engagement team are traipsing back and forth in a field of thousands of Christmas trees. We’re wearing winter jumpers in honour of the occasion – choosing the biggest, bushiest trees to decorate Harewood later in the year – unfortunately it’s nearly 20°C and we’re roasting!

“Are those two the same height?”

We push on nonetheless, looking for several pairs of trees. We need good matches, as they will be standing in pairs at the Arch, the Courtyard and on the Terrace; we also need them as tall as possible, so they don’t get lost in the grand surroundings of Harewood. This is surprisingly difficult, and we definitely get our daily step-count in as we walk to and fro to find matching trees! Once we’ve picked a tree, it gets a reservation label, ready for felling and transporting to Harewood later in the year.

Labelled and reserved for Harewood

On Tuesday, it was time for a team of several staff to get two Nordmann Firs into the House.

Dust sheets were wrapped around each tree, then ratchet straps drawn around the bundle to reduce the width, but without snapping any branches. It was then a case of carefully lifting each tree through the front door (the easy, wide one) and then, for the Gallery tree, through several further internal doors, only three feet wide.

Many pieces of furniture and ornaments have been moved out of harm’s way, but it’s still a tense process for the House Collections team, as the tree squeaks past 250-year old wallpaper, paintings and mirrors. “My only consolation is that it’s been done this way since 1850!” laughs Rebecca, Harewood’s Assistant Curator and Archivist. “Even though it makes us really anxious, the process makes you feel linked to all the Harewood staff who have been through exactly the same emotions over the years.”

We can infer that stress from the first reference to a Christmas tree at Harewood (that Rebecca has found so far), in the ‘Came and Went Away’ book – which was like a House visitor book, usually used to record all the family members and their guests arriving and leaving the house. It lists New Year’s Eve of December 1850, possibly referring to the tree being ‘taken away’, having been in the House through the Christmas period, though it may be that the tree was only in the House for one day. We do know that Christmas trees were popularised amongst the wealthy by an engraving that appeared in the London Illustrated News in 1848, of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their family stood around a Christmas tree. Harewood’s tree may well have been responding to this new fashion.

Reference to the Christmas tree in the Came and Went Away Book

“The Christmas Tree entry in the Came and Went Away Book was probably written by a member of staff like the Butler,” explains Rebecca. “Perhaps he decided to record the occasion of bringing in a tree because it was such novelty, and undoubtedly quite a physical (and messy!) challenge, just as we’re experiencing today.”

Despite the arduous process, in 1850 and in 2021 the trees were successfully brought in. They now stand ready and decorated, to be enjoyed by all the visitors to Harewood this Christmas season.

Book your tickets now to see Harewood’s Christmas trees and enjoy all the festive season has to offer.

If you’ve visited Harewood this week, you’ll have seen that part of the Lakeside Walk is closed as some arboricultural work is done on a beautiful beech tree on the path.

Arboriculture – or the cultivation, management and study of trees and shrubs – is a constant feature of life at Harewood, with thousands of trees within the grounds that need careful attention for the tree’s health and for visitor safety. This beech is rotting, so it’s being reduced by 40% to keep it standing and alive for many more years.

The beech from the other side of the lake – the tallest tree in the centre of the image.

Examining the beech tree

This particular tree is a beech, Fagus sylvatica, approximately 300 – 350 years old. Toadstools (which are the fruiting bodies) of the fungus Pholiotus, ‘Shaggy parasol’, which grows on rotten wood, began to appear on the tree, which prompted us to look deeper into the tree’s physical state.

PiCUS tomography measures sound waves as they travel through the tree. The solidity of the wood dictates how fast they travel, allowing us to see a cross section through the stem.

The brown on this tomograph shows good healthy wood; green is wood in transition; and purple & blue shows rotten/dead wood. A tree can still be very stable if it has at least 70% brown around the outside, but as we can see, our beech has gone beyond this point.

This is a resistograph, showing the results of drilling into the root buttresses with a very fine, long drill. The amount of resistance the drill encounters gives an idea of how solid the wood is, up to a metre’s depth.

A further proof of the tree’s internal rooting is the Ganoderma fungus, ‘Beech heart-rot’ – this has just started to show on the surface, and has caused the dead wood inside.

Reducing the tree

We were advised to reduce the height of the beech by 40%. This reduces the weight that needs to be borne by the rotting stem, as well as mitigating the ‘wind sail’ effect. The smaller tree should stand for many more years; without the reduction, we might have seen the tree fall across the path within one or two years.

Arborists who have taken care of Harewood’s trees for many years are on site this week. They have rigged up an ‘English Reeve’, a rope system, between our beech and a large tree a few metres down the path (requiring around 500m of rope!). This will allow them to move the cut branches at canopy level, then drop them onto a clear section of path, to avoid damaging any smaller trees under the beech.

The beech with its rigging

The view across the lake may look slightly different, but we’re glad that this work will keep a beautiful tree standing for years to come.

With the House opening for a new season, after almost seven months closed, the welcome return of visitors and staff means higher levels of dust.

Collections Care Assistant, Amy, is therefore working on a programme of dust monitoring across the State Floor to highlight how frequently objects need cleaning, so the team can effectively allocate resources, and establish the impact high visitors numbers, the grass being cut, or rock salt in the Winter months has on the levels and types of dust found. On your next visit to the State Floor, well-trained eyes may spot some of the two types of monitoring stations.

A Microscope Slide placed on the State Floor

Microscope slides have been placed on flat polished surfaces to establish how many days, on average, before the dust build up obscures the glossy finish and needs gently removing. Whilst dust can attract pests and become fixed to the surface if it is left, frequent cleaning can also cause damage, especially to delicate surfaces or areas of existing damage.

A sticky dust monitor that has been placed on the State Floor.

Sticky dust monitors have also been placed around the State Floor. These are made from archival grade, acid free board, with double sided sticky tape, and are 2cm by 2cm to make them as small and inconspicuous as possible. After a variable amount of time the sticky dust monitors will be collected in and analysed under a microscope.

Over the past few months, Amy has created a reference guide with microscope images of all the textiles and fibres that can be found across the State Floor, as well as the floors, the Collections Care black jumpers, pollen and grass outside, and hair and skin flakes. When the sticky monitors are analysed under the microscope the guide will help establish what is causing the dust and whether any extra measures can be implemented to minimise the dust. Here’s just a few things that have been found under the microscope…

Dry Soot and Rainwater.

Underlay Fibres

and even a Booklouse !

This #VolunteersWeek, Megan takes us through a day in the life of a Bird Garden Volunteer and how volunteering at Harewood is contributing towards her qualifications. 

My name is Megan and I’m one of the Bird Garden volunteers, I have always had a huge love for animals and I’m currently studying to gain a CMZAAV qualification (Certificate in the Management of Zoo and Aquarium animals) which requires that I volunteer to gain real world experience. I feel incredibly lucky that I’m able to do this at Harewood and work with some of the most amazing animals. My personal favourites are the Humboldt penguins which I’ve learnt to identify, such as Beaky who many of us have a huge soft spot for. Many of my course studies are based on the animals in the collection such as researching their behaviours to further understand them, including how we care, protect and save them. I’m currently working on a project observing Brown Lory behaviours to understand how much they interact with visitors.

A day in the bird garden starts off with preparing the food for all the 50 species of birds – this means a lot of dishes! Once the food is prepped its time to feed and check they are all looking healthy, we do this by just keeping an eye out for any unusual behaviour. Once everyone’s fed, a lot of my time is spent tending to the bird enclosures, often weeding and cleaning. The best part for me is scrubbing down the penguin pools, it’s quite a smelly job but I love it!

Harewood is a fantastic place to volunteer, there is nothing better than being in the great outdoors with nature surrounding you. I am always happy to see visitors enjoying themselves and embracing a passion I hold so closely.

“Over the last couple of weeks the team have re-homed 15 pictures across the State Floor, taking 4-5 people approximately 4 full days to undertake.” 

Hanging pictures in a house like Harewood is a little like playing Tetris – move one, and it inevitably means you have to move something else to fill its place, and on it goes. Each replacement has to be appropriate in terms of size, period, medium and content in relation to its new neighbours, so it’s a carefully thought through procedure. It’s something that the House and Collections team do often at this time of year, in preparation for new displays at the start of the season. Over the last couple of weeks the team have re-homed 15 pictures across the State Floor, taking 4-5 people approximately 4 full days to undertake. 

The process is time consuming and sometimes logistically challenging. Most of the pictures moved during this year’s re-hang were located high-up on the walls of several different State Rooms, with carved and gilded frames making them heavy and cumbersome to manoeuvre (particularly those with elaborate decorative corners). The team used a scaffold tower to make the process as safe and secure as possible for both staff and artwork. It also offers the unique opportunity to experience a room from above and see Harewood’s magnificent ceilings up-close – a rare treat. 

After having cleared a room of furniture, the scaffolding was erected and dismantled several times within each room, taking particular care to avoid delicate fixtures and fittings (such as chandeliers and mirrors) and ensuring carpets were protected using drugget. The works to be relocated were first of all removed from the walls across each of the different spaces, creating space to then reinstall each one in their new homes. Between locations, each picture rested for a time on foam blocks or easels, and if necessary picture lights and fixings were adapted to suit their new positions. Depending on the weight of the piece, dolly wheels were sometimes used to transport pictures between rooms. 

Whilst off the wall, it’s a great time to inspect pictures up-close and undertake a quick visual check of their condition, as well as appreciate their detail at close range. It’s also an opportunity to look at the reverse of a picture, which tells an alternative story about a work through the scars of framing alterations and old exhibition labels. 

When re-hanging the pictures, a hydraulic scissor lift was used (where possible) to lift them to the first level of the scaffolding where they could then be manually lifted up the scaffolding and into position by the team. The pictures were then carefully attached to the walls using picture chains and hooks. Finally, a team member on the ground made visual checks to ensure the pictures were level – often it’s helpful to use the pattern of the wall hangings to make sure they are sitting at the same height as their neighbours. 

Although re-hangs take time and planning, they are a rewarding task. It is always interesting to see familiar pictures in new places – literally seeing them in new light, and allowing new comparisons and new stories to be told. 

– Beckie Burton, Assistant Curator