When we asked Donald Smith, the restorer we use for painted ceilings, to touch up the Library ceiling this year, he reported a sagging area. On closer inspection, one of the ribs which form the frame of the 44 painted panels, executed when the Library was redecorated by George Fox in the 1860s, had cracked and dropped. Something serious was obviously happening.

We first had a Health & Safety moment and checked to see if the damaged section was about to drop. It appeared secure, so we did not have to support it from below, which would have been quite tricky given the height of the room. We then cleared the furniture from the Queen’s Bedroom above the crack and lifted the floorboards. But before we could see what the problem was, we had to hack away the lathe and plaster layer of sound proofing, which insulates the sound of footsteps, in the days before fitted carpets, in the bedroom from the company in the room below.

Then, we found the cause of the problem straight away. The ceiling was suspended from beams by nails driven in from below. The nails were hand cut (nothing but the best for my forebears) and tapered. A combination of the weight of the plaster and drying out of the wood had caused a few nails to start to pull out of the wood. Their shape did not help.

We could not lift the ceiling back, so after consultation with architect, engineer and our Clerk of Works, Alan Smith, we decided to secure it all with angled brackets. We used Graham Walker and his team from Ledbury to do the work. One of them was thin enough to fit under the floor in the gap above the ceiling to reach the areas inaccessible from above. We hope it will now be secure for the indefinite future but have taken the chance also to photograph all 44 painted panels just in case.

JH-B 11th May 2010

Although it feels more like winter at the moment, spring cleaning is about to start. There is always some competition between the office, who want to take bookings, and the housekeeping side, who want uninterrupted possession to ensure our guests find a clean house, but a compromise is usually reached in February, our low season.

Over the years, we have invested in more and more new equipment and cleaning products, although for certain jobs, elbow grease, such as polishing, is still the best. We have a scaffold tower for high-level dusting and cleaning picture frames and vacuuming tapestries, and a selection of brushes, feather dusters and chemicals for marble, wood, enamel and rugs. We are more limited now on what we can use to deal with moths and beetles, but there is nothing better than the smell of traditional beeswax polish on the woodwork.

We refer to the National Trust Manual of Housekeeping which is a thesaurus of useful information, though we are not always able to follow its advice to the letter.  We just don’t have time.

I love coming into a newly-cleaned room. It smells quite different. My only worry is that Rosemary, our housekeeper, and her team will find some terrible hidden problem when they get down to business. We are still waiting for the tapestry they said needed repair to come back after nearly two years away. What will they find this year?                     JH-B   29th January 2010

Two weeks ago, we hosted a wonderful wedding for a prominent sportsman and his bride. It was certainly the most-carefully planned and most spectacular we have held here, and the weather was perfect

Over the preceding weeks, Becky Johnson, our weddings co-ordinator was in daily contact with the couple’s wedding planner as the details were worked out: catering, table plans, bedrooms, pre-wedding party, hire of horse & carriage, string quartet, fireworks and arrangements with the parish church in Eastnor. But the real difference came with the flowers and the formal garden created in front of the Castle between the Portcullis and Porte Cochère, with a lawn covering the gravel with urns with flowers on the edges and a pergola in the middle. As the bride set off for the church, a path of white petals guided her to her awaiting carriage. She looked absolutely wonderful.

Inside, the flowers were equally spectacular, with roses, orchids, stocks and hydrangeas in profusion. The smells were delicious, and it was a big bonus for the public visitors when they arrived the next day.

On the lower terrace, a night club tent had been put up, with a trail of candles lighting the spiral staircase that drew the guests down to it after the wedding breakfast. The mirror dance floor may have been less of a draw for some, but the orchids trailing from the chandelier in the middle seemed to tempt most to dance.

All in all, it was a wonderful wedding and a very happy day for the bride and groom and all their guests. We loved the excitement and challenge of it, and the flowers that were left behind reminded us of the happy day for the following week.        JH-B