THE COLOURS OF CALKE

An article that appeared (with beautiful photographs by Lucinda Lambton) in The World
of Interiors. December 2007. pp138-143.

“Waste not Want not” - the adage painted above the fireplace in the Kitchen hints at the
chaotic clutter at Calke Abbey [picture 1 - “Waste not Want not”]. However, it was a
genetic tendency to reclusiveness combined with an obsession with collecting that led to
the slow and irreversible decline of the Harpur-Crewe family.

Having upset the conventions of the eighteenth century by marrying a lady’s maid Sir
Henry Harpur, the ‘isolated’ 7th Baronet’, lived in self-imposed seclusion. His great-
grandson Sir Vauncey inherited his solitary nature and added hundreds of cases of stuffed
creatures to the already enormous collection. When Henry Harpur-Crewe handed over
the house to the National Trust in the 1980s it was virtually as it had been a century
before. Lucinda Lambton recorded this extraordinary house twenty years ago and these
wonderfully evocative photographs show the soft textures of the painted surfaces.

The Trust has made essential repairs to the fabric of the house, but inside it tries to arrest
the inevitable process of decay and to present the building as found. They have yet to
investigate the nature of the painted surfaces but most appear to be distempers, lime
washes, and lead-based oil paints from the nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries.

The Kitchen was fitted out in 1794, but was abandoned in 1928. The walls are coated
with what appears to be distemper. This came in various forms, the “soft” variety being a
simple combination of chalk and water with a small quantity of glue size made from
animal skin, horn or hoof. The components were mixed warm and allowed to cool until
the mixture had the consistency of “trembling jelly”. Sometimes a little alum and soft
soap were substituted for the size in order to make it more resistant to abrasion.
Alternatively the distemper could be bound by introducing oil or casein, a protein found
in milk and cheese. Unlike the simpler form, which was very permeable to moisture
vapour, the “bound” varieties were less so and also tended to cause problems when
coated over by subsequent layers of paint. The blistering seen on the walls around the
fire extinguisher bracket [picture 2 - metal hooks on yellow wall] suggests that we may
be looking at one of these.

The distemper has been tinted with yellow ochre, a colour frequently used in the early
nineteenth century for kitchens and service areas. It had the advantage of being cheap
and readily available especially in a mining county like Derbyshire. Quantities of red and
yellow ochre were certainly being dug up twenty or so miles away at Wirksworth and it is
likely that ochres found on the Harpur-Crewe’s extensive landholdings were employed in
the house.

The walls of the Kitchen however have not always been painted yellow, for just apparent
in the twenty-year old photographs, and even more visible today, are patches of an earlier

1
violet-tinged blue - ultramarine. Originally produced from the semi precious stone lapis
lazuli this colour was not available in a synthesised form until the 1830s.

The introduction of French Ultramarine, as the artificial variety was known, meant that
this distinctive colour began to find its way into the decoration of houses. Its appearance
in decorative schemes frequently marks the mid-nineteenth century and at Calke it can
also be seen in the wallpaper in Sir Vauncy’s boyhood bedroom. As well as making a
fashion statement there was also a theory that a blue-painted surface would discourage
flies. This belief seems to have been held in many cultures although recent experiments
have failed to corroborate it.

Unusually for a blue pigment, French ultramarine, was suitable for use in both oil and
water-based media, was non-fading, and unaffected by moisture. It was also resistant to
the alkaline nature of limewash which was frequently used in certain parts of the house
for its mildly antiseptic nature. For these reasons it is not surprising to see this
combination of colour and medium in the Scullery; the Cook’s Closet and also in the
Gardener’s Bothy [pictures 3 & 4 - blue-painted walls].

Other colours can be seen on the first floor at Calke. A well-worn soft distemper tinted
with yellow and red ochre to produce a fawn colour can be found outside the Schoolroom
[picture 5 - pale pink-painted plaster]. Its unevenness and the fine cracks in the
underlying lime plaster give it the appearance of marble - far more convincing than the
imitation marbling applied to the walls of the floor above.

Large expanses of a brighter yellow distemper can be seen in several of the first floor
corridors [picture 6 - yellow-painted plaster]. Unusually the pigment employed to
produce this type of colour was termed pink, for until the nineteenth century such a name
was used to describe yellows produced from plant sources. A wide variety was available
and colourmen would employ such names as Brown Pink, Dutch Pink, English Pink or
Yellow Pink. Frequently employed in distemper, the pinks also saw use in the production of
cheap wallpaper until the early twentieth century. This bright yellow distemper is
juxtaposed with its complementary warm grey-blue on the upper walls of the first floor
West Passage. The latter is very curious, for in different areas the colour shifts from grey
to blue [picture 7 - mauve-painted plaster].

The Lamp Room appears to display some of the earliest paint in the house [picture 8 -
dull green cupboard doors]. The walls have been painted with an off-white soft
distemper that has had a small quantity of black added to take off the inherent yellowness
of the chalk. This combined with age has given it a distinct grey cast. The cupboard
doors are painted with a pale drab colour of such antiquity that the paint is showing signs
of "Pentimento" a condition more frequently observed in old paintings where lead-
containing pigments have become semi-transparent over time. This room was still in use
in living memory as electricity was not introduced to Calke until 1963 and even then only
in the principal rooms.

2
Calke stands as a memorial to the many country houses that disappeared during the
twentieth century. These haunting photographs record scenes that even now are fading.