St. Mary’s church in Long Sutton, South Lincolnshire is steeped in history. For more information about the church and it’s history, a tour can be found here.

The south facing nave wall has the remains of medieval wall painting. The remains can be seen as freehand repeat patterns. It is clear there is a main wall filling pattern topped by a border. On the inner archway is further freehand scrollwork which, again, appears to repeat itself.

All surfaces were generally dirty having accidental oil based black paint drips and lines. The black paint marks and all surface areas were cleaned by dry and mechanical methods. This was followed by consolidation of the cleaned surface areas.

The cleaning revealed and helped define the remaining designs (see before and after images below), it also revealed evidence of a veridgis pigment (see above right). Verdigris was a common pigment used in the medieval times right up until the 19th century. It is an unstable pigment and can have a tendency to darken to a brown/black over time.