Ledbury's 16th Century Painted Room

The Southeast comer after completion of the Conservators' work, The two white panels had deteriorated badly and had to be completely replaced

The Inscriptions

In seeking to date the Painted Room, we had valuable help and advice from Clive Wainwright and the staff of the Victoria & Albert Museum, suggesting we pursue the connections with Bible printing and the history of Tudor embroidery .As you can see, the room was painted with strapwork and flowers, reminiscent of a Tudor knot- garden. At valance height, are the decorative hand-written panels that despite loss of much of the lettering, have been identified as being based on Psalms 15 and 111 and Proverbs 15. It is these that provide the key to dating.

Work recently done by the Ledbury Parochial Archivist, Mrs Lillian Sanders, ('The Painted Room, Church Lane. Ledbury'; privately published 1991) indicates that this, the eighth out of the nine inscriptions that, her scholarship demonstrates, this 16th century room originally contained, was, like the rest, copied in 1560, or soon thereafter in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, from the Psalter printed to accompany the first Prayer Book of King Edward VI, both of which date from 1549.

It was Thomas Cromwell, Chancellor to King Henry VIII who, in 1537 -to the great good fortune of modern-day local historians everywhere -ordered that Parish records henceforth be kept and, even more important in the case of the Ledbury Painted Room, that the Bible be translated into English and made available for all to read.. Because he did that, and because these wall paintings have remained un-discovered until as recently as 1988, we are only now able to begin the process of piecing together the history of this building and its occupants. This find is also important because it helps gain some insight into just how great was the impact of the Bible printed in plain English on the everyday life of Tudor England. More work remains to be done in identifying the actual age of the building as well as its use and occupant in Tudor times so the Hereford Archaeological Unit, the acknowledged experts in the field, have been asked, as the next step, to advise on conducting a full dating survey of the building.

The texts revealed after 430 years

The Display

On display are pictures taken during the progress of the conservation work, with a brief description of what that involved. Also on view are two of the Bibles used in dating the inscriptions.
The 1648 table, with its chair of similar date, stands on the only area of original Tudor oak floorboards left in the building. Very typical of the kind of furniture you would have found in the home of a 16th or 17th century merchant, these have served Ledbury's famous Market House for as long as anyone knows as the journalist's place for Town and Parish meetings. They have been kindly lent by Ledbury Consolidated Charities, the owners of the Market House where, until recently, meetings of Ledbury Town Council were always held.

No.1 Church Lane

This is one of the most interesting yet mysterious buildings in Ledbury .The spot where it stands, at the junction of the 'kings highway' and the east/west track from Hereford Cathedral to Ledbury Parish Church, has undoubtedly been the site of continuous human activity for more than a thousand years. In Elizabethan times Ledbury was a small town of some 600 to 650 people, and the market and religious centre for a further 880 rural parishioners; some 1500 in all. Yet, despite having records for Ledbury going back to 1557 and beyond, for this building - unlike others around it -we have as yet found no exact record; neither its purpose nor who lived here.

Interpreting the Find

By the end of the 15th century painted wallpapers stuck directly to the walls are known to have existed in England but none have, as yet, been found to survive. By the 16th century , in the mansions and great houses of England, wall hangings of tapestry, painted cloth or leather had long served both as decoration and draught ~ protectors. A 16th century Dutch or German School picture (No.10430), in what was until recently the East German State Art ~ Collection at Kassel, of Queen Elizabeth I receiving emissaries from the Netherlands in her Privy Chamber in c.1585, shows the room had wall-hangings strikingly like those imitated here; a valance along each wall at ceiling height covering the tops of the main hangings that reached from ceiling to floor, all decorated with flowers and leaves on a dark blue/black background. In Ledbury, however, there are notable differences. This was not the 'great house' of a queen or a rich magnate but the working home of a townsman who copied, in paint, the trappings of importance. Below the Painted Room, the Town Clerk's office (not on exhibition) is a panelled, carved and columned room. In this upper chamber the 'hangings' have been painted only to some 3 feet from the floor. Originally below that was a painted dado (the one remaining part of it can be seen in the far corner beyond the fireplace) intended to represent another panelled room, this time fashionable with wall cloths.

Significantly, the texts were executed by a hand far more competent in lettering than that which painted the main decorations. Even the best painters of the 16th century were but 'artisans' who worked, anonymously, to order. Their work is identifiable by style and brushstroke, but this room in Ledbury is not of that level of
competence and we shall, almost certainly, find it impossible to name the executant. There was, however, a purpose both to the painting and the texts -a clear intention to impress on the beholder ! the tenets of Psalm and Proverb. According to Ledbury Parish Church Archives, we learn from 'The Parish of Ledbury in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth l' by the late Miss S.F .Robinson, there may have been built here a Booth Hall to replace the original early 15th century one sited where the Feathers Hotel now is. Such a use for this building -with its concern for the proper conduct of Ledbury's markets and fairs; market toll gathering; the Court of Piepowder; control of vagrants and the distribution of poor law monies -might well account for the very particular choice of texts used in the Painted Room, with their emphasis on the good citizen, duty and love.

Finding the Painted Room

You are, in Ledbury's 16th Century Painted Room, therefore, standing in the middle of a continuing detective story that began some four years ago when it became clear that the whole building was in urgent need of restoration and conservation. With the aid of valuable help, advice and grants from English Heritage and Malvern Hills District Council; plus a very substantial commitment by the Community Charge payers of the town; and the services of a well- respected architect and building conservation expert, Freddie Charles of Worcester, a £250,000+ programme of work started in 1988 and was completed by May 1990. The intention was to restore the building so that it might all be put to good use, no one then realising what it contained.

Because of what the refurbishment programme revealed we now have some evidence that the building itself dates from about 1500 but, in the course of that work, the discovery was made that, beneath many layers of later plaster paint and paper, there was clear evidence in the first floor chamber of a painted decoration having been applied directly to the original wattle-and-daub that in filled its timbers.

Conservation

By its very nature such a discovery is exceedingly rare. There is evidence in other parts of the building of directly painted decoration of similar early date but only in this room and at the bottom of the stairs were there areas capable of saving and restoration. The work of removing the overlying layers of later centuries was started in the early summer of 1990, expertly carried out by the Perry Lithgow Partnership of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, who specialise in the restoration and conservation of wall paintings. It was completed in November 1990, at a cost of some £17,000. This sum is being met from much-valued further grants from English Heritage, also Malvern Hills District Council, and public subscription. One of Town Mayor Fred Cobb's charitable causes for his year of office, funding the work has also been helped by an interest-free loan plus a £-for-£ contribution to the public fund from the Ledbury and District Society Trust.
Because the finds are both unique and fragile, the building cannot now be put to full commercial use -with the consequent loss of the income that had been intended to pay for the building's future upkeep. Your entrance fees, donations etc will all go, you will therefore be glad to know, to ensuring that this building and these rooms will continue to be cared for as befits what is turning out to be one of England's most valuable vernacular building possessions.

Almost certainly though. the Painted Room has not yet yielded up all its secrets. There is further research to be done. if only because what was not inscribed on these walls may yet prove to be as revealing as what was.

THE COURT OF PIEPOWDER
The ancient court of rough and ready justice for all-comers to fairs and markets, particularly vagrants, wayfarers and itinerants -those with 'dusty feet' (from the Old French, 'Pied poudre.')' (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, New Ed. 1988).

FURTHER READING
Sanders, Mrs B.G. 'The Painted Room, Church Lane, Ledbury' (1991)
Robinson, Miss S.F.G. 'The Parish of Ledbury, Herefordshire, under the Reign of Elizabeth I
Palliser, D.M. 'Age of Elizabeth: England under the later Tudors 1547-1603' (1983)
Hillaby, J.G., 'Book of Ledbury' (1982)
Clark,P and Slack,P 'English Towns in Transition 1450-1570' (1976)

Please note – Regrettably, the Painted Room is not easily accessible for the disabled and for those whom stairs are difficult. Please take care when in the building

Text taken from “Ledbury’s 16th Century Painted Room – Souvenir Brochure”