Wel­beck is an estate with­in Sher­wood For­est in Not­ting­hamshire which encom­pass­es the Port­land Col­lec­tion and the Harley Gallery. The Port­land Col­lec­tion dis­plays a selec­tion of fine art and dec­o­ra­tive design col­lect­ed over a peri­od of 400 years by the inhab­i­tants of the estate from 1755 – 1977.

The grounds of the estate con­tain hid­den tun­nels and over­grown gate­ways, con­struct­ed dur­ing John Bentick, 5^th Duke of Portland’s time at the estate. The col­lec­tion includes paint­ings by Antho­ny van Dyck and John Singer Sar­gent along­side Sèvres ceram­ics pro­duced from the 1760’s onwards as well as a large col­lec­tion of miniatures.

The estate is set in park­land on the edge of Sher­wood For­est. It was found­ed as a monastery in 1153 before it became a Cav­a­lier res­i­dence and then went on to become a coun­try seat to a suc­ces­sion of Dukes of Port­land. Dur­ing the First World War the estate formed a base for an army hos­pi­tal and then it became an army train­ing col­lege from the 1950s through to 2005 and is the cur­rent res­i­dence of the descen­dants of the Cavendish fam­i­ly.

In 1607 it was pur­chased by Sir Charles Cavendish, the youngest son of Bess of Hard­wick. Since then, the estate has been hand­ed down through the gen­er­a­tions with fam­i­ly mem­bers, includ­ing the 3^rd Duke of Port­land, who was twice Prime Min­is­ter, and Sir Edward Harley, whose exten­sive col­lec­tion was the foun­da­tion for The British Library. The under­ground tun­nels are a lega­cy of the 5^th Duke of Port­land or the ​‘bur­row­ing duke’ who com­mis­sioned the tun­nels in order to move about the estate unseen.

The DYCP fund­ing allowed for a num­ber of col­lab­o­ra­tive engage­ments through­out the project. I worked with col­lage artist and art han­dler David Orme to con­sid­er ideas of cura­tion and dis­play, and we dis­cussed this in a fea­ture for the Con­tem­po­rary British Paint­ing Soci­ety. The PDF of this dis­cus­sion is added at the bot­tom of this page. I was also able to under­take men­tor­ing with Dun­can Hoo­son, lec­tur­er at UAL and Co Direc­tor of Clay­ground Col­lec­tive. This brought about many changes in my ceram­ic prac­tice, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the use f glazes and con­sid­er­ing the cul­tur­al sig­ni­fiers implied in these. I also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with Han­nah Maples (His­tor­i­cal Cos­tume Inter­preter at the Port­land) who was an expert in the fab­rics depict­ed in the 17^th cen­tu­ry por­trai­ture dis­played in the col­lec­tion, unfurl­ing nar­ra­tives, pol­i­tics and ide­olo­gies set with linen, lace, cloth of gold, shot silk and kid leather. These insights were held with­in the folds of many aspects of the project, encas­ing ceram­ics and unrav­el­ling in the folds of paintings.

Han­nah Marples dis­cussing fab­rics in the paint­ings of the Port­land Collection