16th c. wall paintings found in Tudor hunting lodge

Renovations at The Ashes, a Tudor hunting lodge in Inglewood Forest, near Ivegill, Cumbria, have uncovered 16th century wall paintings hidden under old plaster work. The wall paintings feature fantastical creatures and foliate motifs drawn freehand in black and white. Surviving Tudor wall paintings are rare, but they are particularly rare in the north of England, making this example all the more exceptional.

A small section of the wall painting was first uncovered in the 1970s, but the recent renovation of the primary bedroom removed the failing plaster that had covered up much more of the work.

The paintings, created using a secco technique where pigments are applied to dry plaster, include striking images of Grotesque head profiles and a dog’s head emerging from decorative foliage. They are thought to be an imitation textile design, reflecting the sophisticated tastes of the building’s wealthy original occupants.

This is a much more free-wheeling and large-scale interpretation of the Grotesque style than I’ve seen before. Inspired by the meticulous wall frescoes of the Domus Aurea, rediscovered in the 1480s and rapidly taking hold among Renaissance artists from Italy to Northern Europe, the Grotesque style of wall painting used a profusion of beasts, deities, florals, architectural features, often repeated in vertical alignments. The Tudor mural found at Calverley Old Hall in Leeds in 2021 is a good example of that.

Poet and teacher Henry Peacham wrote about the style in this mural style in his 1612 art treatise The Gentlemans Exercise. He referred to it as the “Anticke” form, a l’antica in Italian.

The forme of it is a generall, and (as I may say) an unnaturall or unorderly composition for delight sake, of men, beasts, birds, fishes, flowers, &c. without (as we say) Rime or reason, for the greater variety you shew in your invention, the more you please, but remembring to observe a method or continuation of one and the same thing throughout your whole worke without change or altering.

You may, if you list, draw naked boyes riding and playing with their paper-mils or bubble-shels upon Goates, Eagles, Dolphins &c. the bones of a Rams head hung with strings of beads and Ribands, Satyres, Tritons, Apes, Cornu-copia’s, Dogs yoakt, &c. drawing Cowcumbers, Cherries, and any kind of wild traile or vinet after your owne invention, with a thousand more such idle toyes, so that herein you cannot be too fantastical.

Dendrochronological analysis of the original timbers under the roof of the earliest part of the house dates the wood to 1561 or 1562. That means the roof timbers were cut during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historic England experts believe the paintings date to the same period, which would make it a very early surviving wall painting as most of the extant examples in English homes date to after 1575.

The main building of The Ashes is on the National Heritage List for England, designated as a Grade II*, a building of more than special historical interest, and as of this year, its agricultural buildings and boundary walls have been granted Grade II listed status.

* This article was originally published here