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From tatters to beauty

Posted in Behind the Scenes on 04 Oct 2024

A plan in tatters

An archivist’s heart sinks when faced with a plan drawn on tracing paper, as it can often mean it is incredibly fragile and in pieces, as is sometimes the case with 19th or early 20th century records. Tracing or transparent papers became widely available around the early to mid 19th century. They were thin, smooth, and transparent which made them ideal for engineers and architects to draw up working plans as they were easy to reproduce. Tracing paper achieves its translucency through the application of oils or resins onto the surface, and it is partly due to this factor, along with its manufacturing process, that the paper becomes brittle and discoloured over time. 

This happened when we were cataloguing additional records for the Archdeaconry of Berkshire, one of our most important local collections. We were faced with an envelope full of shards of brittle paper on which we could decipher a nice little plan of Wallingford (ref. D/A4/13/3). Any attempt to handle it would only have made the plan worse.

Plan in pieces ref. D/A4/13/3
It is not entirely clear why the plan was created, but it shows the parish boundaries in Wallingford, and the locations of both the Anglican parish churches and nonconformist chapels. It probably dates from the early 20th century, based on the handwriting. It may perhaps have been used to consider changes to parish boundaries. It also shows other important buildings in the town.

This plan was clearly of interest, but quite unusable in its current state. We brought it to the attention of our brilliant Conservation team, who thought it was not beyond rescue. However, it would be time consuming and tricky job.

Our conservator explains the process 

Before any conservation treatment, we always start with a discussion of “why” before looking at the “how” of possible options. Once a decision has been made to proceed with conserving a document it will undergo pre-treatment tests to ensure that it is safe to apply certain treatments to the specific document. Transparent papers are highly reactive to moisture, and challenging to handle when wet. However, in conservation, we’re used to handling fragile documents just as we’re used to handling delicate archivists! 

Similar to putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the multiple pieces of the Wallingford tracing were fitted back together to work out their placements. They were cleaned with grated erasers (yes, grated like cheese) and a large soft brush to remove surface dirt and dust.

Close up of a piece of plan ref. D/A4/13/3

Reverse close up of a piece of plan ref. D/A4/13/3

The brittle pieces were then humidified in a “humidification chamber or pack” using Sympatex and Evolon microfilament materials wrapped in polythene. This step “relaxes” the pieces of tracing, preparing them to be adhered onto a large sheet of Japanese tissue.

Pieces of a plan wrapped in polythene ref. D/A4/13/3

Japanese tissue serves many purposes in conservation. It is used to repair tears, fill in missing areas on a paper document, and to support fragile paper as a lining. It is both strong and flexible. Its strength and flexibility come from the intricate weaving of long fibres derived from the Kozo or mulberry plant from which most Japanese tissues are made. They can be so fine that they appear almost invisible but they can also be thick and robust enough to support working maps and plans.

The loose pieces of the Wallingford tracing were placed onto the Japanese tissue lining and adhered with a 50:50 adhesive of wheat starch paste and 4% methycellulose to ensure proper adhesion but also to minimise exposure to too much moisture.

Japanese tissue laid out

The missing areas were filled in with toned Japanese tissue but we do not fill in the missing information - just physical gaps.

Plan will missing sections filled with Japanese tissue ref. D/A4/13/3

The final step was to trim the plan…and hand it back to the archivist who was suitably amazed by the results!

Repaired plan ref. D/A4/13/3

From a handful of scraps, to a beautiful usable plan! Indeed, we had to amend the draft catalogue, as initially we had assumed it was a traced copy, but on seeing the whole picture, it was clearly an original, drawn with pen and ink and watercolour. Here at the RBA we are lucky to have the onsite expertise of both conservators and archivists as this enables us to provide access to documents - even the fragile ones.