2018 marked the 200th anniversary of the death of the pioneering landscape gardener Humphry Repton (1752 - 1818). Repton would present each of his clients with a book bounding red leather detailing his proposed designs: maps, plans, drawings, watercolours and ‘before and after sketches’. Due to their intricate levels of detail, the ‘Red Books’ are an invaluable source for the history of a the particular site and also for landscape history in general. HALS owns two of the seven which are known to survive for Hertfordshire: Panshanger (a Grade II* listed park today) and Tewin Water.
Their conservation was funded by the NMCT in 2018 and involved repairing both volumes, resewing them and stabilising the bindings.
The Panshanger volume was in a considerably worse condition. The sewing had broken down and the binding was unstable meaning document handling was difficult. The loose gatherings were secured by resewing the volumes and the binding stabilised. The re-sewn text block was reattached to the boards while not interfering with the endpapers meaning that the repair was unobtrusive, strong and long lasting. The Tewin Water was in better condition overall but still required repair to tears and splits inn text block and consolidation of the binding.
Conservation had to take place before the two volumes could be displayed as two of over 20 Red Books brought together by the Garden Museum in London for their ‘Repton Revealed’ exhibition which ran from 24 October 2018 to 03 February 2019.
