A carved putto is not just for Christmas! - Newton Abbot Museum

By: Felicity Cole
Added: 21 December 2012

A Carved Putto is not just for Christmas!

Hugh Harrison's conservation workshops are full of winged puttos and cherubs, as well as sea monsters and strange 'goat ladies'!

Newton Abbot Curator and the Conservation Officers from Teignbridge District Council, accompanied Cllr Philip Vogel, to see how the conservation of the Sandford Orleigh Screen was coming along.

The impact of the original wood carvers skill hit us all straight away.  Liz Cheadle has cleaned all the thick layers of varnish off the panels and the result is quite remarkable.  All sorts of forms, faces and swirls have been rediscovered.

Laurence Beckford  has the difficult task of re-carving a support for the screen that only exists within old black and white images of the screen, when it was in situ in the house of Sandford Orleigh, Newton Abbot.  He has discovered a Glaistig or Fuath, a mythological figure from Scotland- a goat lady!  He has begun the painstaiking process of creating a clay carving prior to re-carving it in oak.  When it has been carved in wood the image will be uploaded to the website for all to see!

Merry Christmas!