Kedleston Hall’s Peacock Dress, a symbol of the British Raj in India, gets a makeover, and a rare but damaged painting from Dyrham Park reveals a controversial colonial past.
Kedleston Hall was once home to Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India at the height of the British Raj. The famous Peacock Dress - named for the embroidered peacock feathers that cover it - can be found in Kedleston's collection. Famously worn by Lord Curzon's wife, Mary, it's now in dire need of repair.
Meanwhile, at the baroque mansion of Dryham Park in Gloucestershire, conservation work is needed on a rare but damaged painting of the port of Bridgetown, Barbados, which belonged to 17th-century colonial bureaucrat William Blathwayt. Barbados at the time was the centre of sugar production and intrinsically linked with the horrors of slavery, and the painting is thought to show an important but unknown event in the island's history.
