Who can estimate age of old wallpaper

[Ian Lamprell]

Hidden behind some plywood finishing in my house are the remains of various layers of wallpaper. The oldest, judging by the layering, has a mushroom colour base with lines and scroll work that appear to simulate stonework. This lining is a rusty red colour. In addition the pattern has a large four pane arched windows, mainly in blue but with detail in the rusty red, white and the mushroom colour. On top of these window patterns are similar but smaller three paned windows. It would seem that someone liked this pattern as the next layer of wallpaper is in a similar style (as far as I can tell from what remains) but the lines are finer and the colours richer. I have photos of this wallpaper. Can anyone advise a resource who would be able to help with determining the age of this wallpaper? For your information my property dates from the mid to late 16th century, is in Essex and apart from what appears to be a fine layer of gesso the paper is bonded directly to an oak beam.

 

[Lime]

I'm not in a position to help you with your wallpaper but thought I'd warn you not to "suck it and see"!
Old wallpaper often contained poisons, arsenic for example, and needs to be handled with care.

 

[stickybeak]

.

 

[Nemesis]

The V and A has a collection and used to have a curator, but with cutbacks in recent years that post may have been lost.

Might be worth contacting though.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/nal/guides/wallpapers/index.html

EH has a study collection.

Love to see the pics if you could post them.

I have a collection of scraps of historic papers found in various places in our house. Few ever seemed to have been removed when redecorating, simply another layer put on top.

 

[Nigel Watts]

I found a good deal of old paper when decorating my 1840 house in London. I counted at least ten layers in the hall. In the drawing room I found enough of what was probaly the original layer to reconstruct what the overall decorative scheme must have looked like.

All has now been stripped away, but I took photos and some samples. The drawing room samples were steamed off in quite large pieces after sticking some thin but very strong semi-transparent Japanese paper on top using a reversible adhesive that comes undone with water but not with steam (I dont know what this was - someone did this bit for me).

I tried to get the V&A interested, but not being from a grand house they seemed rather dismissive. They did confirm however that the paper could data from the 1840s, when trope l'oeil papers seemed to be fashionable.

http://www.fitzwalter.com/house/wallpaper.htm

 

[alice]

I thought wallpaper became more common in the early 1800's, so when I first read your post my first impression was to doubt if your sample was from the the earliest period of your house. Here in the States, wallpaper evolved from early Oriental imports that featured scenes and architectural features (18th c) to the repeats printed on long scrolls that are still used today (early 19th c).

But when I went to look up the dates for common usage (which are always different, and much later, than what was used in posh houses), I came across this quote---

"The manufacturing methods developed by the English are significant, and the products from 18th century London workshops became all the rage. At first, fashion conscious Londoners ordered expensive hand painted papers that imitated architectural details or materials like marble and stucco, but eventually wallpapers won favor on their own merits."

There was no citation with it, but I thought it was interesting given the description you gave of the wallpaper.

alice

 

[Nemesis]

Nigel's looks wonderful - how colourful it must have looked when first done!

 

[Ian Lamprell]

Thanks for the replies everyone. If I could post a jpeg I would but as it looks like you need to post photos via a web page you may have to wait unless someone can advise how to post jpegs. PS I did send a photo to the site owners perhaps they could post it for me.

[/img]

 

[Nemesis]

This could help:

http://periodpropertyshop.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7515&highlight=posting+pics

 

[Ian Lamprell]

Thanks very much for your help on this. The below shows the various layers of paper starting with the most recent (1) on a layer of backing paper (2) and then another layer of paper (3) in the style of the oldest layer (4)

And here is one showing a larger section of the old layer

It is all covered over again but the whole lot was photographed. Does anyone recognise this style of wallpaper or know anything about its likely age?

 

[zunetunes]

Unable to help, but do post back here if you get any joy elsewhere. I have some very definitely victorian paper from one of our rooms but haven't been able to find out much

 

[Juju]

Have you looked at the book 'Wallpaper in Interior Decoration' by Gill Saunders (2002), a V&A publication. A very useful reference. Your oldest fragment of wallpaper looks like some of the 'architectural' wallpapers of 1760s.

 

[Nemesis]

SPAB course on historic wallpaper:

http://www.spab.org.uk/html/media-centre/press-releases/press-release/NewAutumnTechnicalCourseProgrammefromSPAB.html?ContentID=58

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Thanks very much for your help on this. The below shows the various layers of paper starting with the most recent (1) on a layer of backing paper (2) and then another layer of paper (3) in the style of the oldest layer (4)

And here is one showing a larger section of the old layer

It is all covered over again but the whole lot was photographed. Does anyone recognise this style of wallpaper or know anything about its likely age?

Looks like quite a nice late eighteenth / early nineteenth century "gothick" design, like some of these:

http://www.leeds.gov.uk/templenewsam/house/collect_wall_gs.html

http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/wallpap/wallpap.htm

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/prints_books/Wallpaper/Shopping_Wallpaper/index.html

Basically pre-Pugin, so light-hearted and frivolous (Horace Walpole and William Beckford), not serious Christian Gothic revival

 

[Ian Lamprell]

I've been looking through the photos I took with a view to sending some off to the wallpaper history society and have spotted an extra layer of wallpaper.

It's between the oldest layer and the more recent but brighter paper in a similar style to the oldest. You can see it in the middle of the photo below and appears to be some kind of leaf in two or three shades of brown with other lines and shapes in brown and maroon.

Perhaps the owner at the time changed to this leafy style and then had a change of heart and covered it over with something similar to his or her previous choice.

Thanks everyone for your input. I would be interested to hear what you make of this new layer. Sorry there is not much to go on.

 

[charlie-ia]

i dont have anything to help you im afraid, but would like to thank you.
we've had to strip the wallpaper. after reading your stories i was obsessive about taking it off in layers.
the reward was a page from a teachers newspaper dated august 1904. used to line the back of a cupboard wall.

we also found several sheets used as draught excluder in the roof.
Any one know how to straighten them out without them falling apart and preserve them?