Mrs Smith’s Cottage

We carried out a programme of research into the historic decorative schemes of Mrs Smith’s Cottage, an 1830s home representing the life of a typical Lincolnshire resident from a bygone age.

  • Cottage Interior

    Cottage Interior

  • Cottage Exterior

    Cottage Exterior

  • Wallpaper Uncovering

    Wallpaper Uncovering

  • Paint Sample Analysis

    Paint Sample Analysis

The cottage in Navenby, Lincolnshire, was home to Hilda Smith from 1922-95 and later opened to the public as a heritage attraction. After a temporary closure in 2016, the cottage developed a number of structural issues.  

Following a successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid to ‘Rescue Mrs Smith’s Cottage’, restoration is now underway. We were commissioned to undertake research into the historic decorative schemes in the cottage, providing an account of how its interior décor evolved throughout the period of Mrs Smith’s occupancy, and earlier.

In order to research the historic decorative schemes in the cottage, we

·      Removed samples of paint and wallpaper from all rooms and spaces

·      Caried out analysis on these samples to consider alongside documentary evidence 

A significant discovery was the fragmentary evidence for numerous layers of early wallpapers pre-dating Mrs Smith’s occupancy in one of the bedrooms. Traces of early wallpapers were also found trapped beneath the purlins and rafters in the roof.