Search for workmen who wrote names on Palace ceiling

Conservators restoring paintings at Blenheim Palace are hoping to track down workmen or their relatives who left their names in the ceiling area decades ago.

About 11 names have been found scribbled high up in the Great Hall of the stately home in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, by art restorers working on the paintings.

The team, who thought they were the first people for centuries to access the ceilings, said they were "amazed" after they started finding names and dates doodled on the ceiling area as they worked about 67ft (20m) up.

Among those who left their mark are a group believed to have worked on the coving in 1968 and the earliest, a plasterer, T Harwood whose signature is dated 1843.

The palace wants to hear from anyone who can help link the names with previous work on the ceilings.

Lizzie Woolley, director of Opus Conservation, said: "We were excited to discover these pieces of graffiti. We didn't have any documentary evidence of previous work to the Great Hall and Saloon and these are a tantalising clue as to what was done, and when.

"It would be brilliant to solve the mystery of who these people were, and what they were doing in the Great Hall."

Amongst the scribbles and scratched names are:

• F. R. Rambone, 292 Abingdon Rd, Oxford, 10 February 1931
• G T Higgs 1921 Oxford, who is thought to have varnished windows
• T Riley 2011
• J F Brennan 1968
• J. Henfry 1968
• H J Brennan 1968
• W A Hunt 1968
• W Smith 1888
• T Harwood, plasterer 1843
• E Tuffrey Valentine's Day 1939
• Rewired LH 1935

The paintings being restored include the Great Hall ceiling work by Sir James Thornhill, from 1716, and Louis Laguerre's paintings of the Battle of Blenheim located in the Saloon.

The scheme forms part of a £12 million restoration of the palace's roof, set to finish in 2026.

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