IN the hidden corridors of a North-East museum, work has started to restore one of the largest collections of textiles in Britain.

In the maze of stairs and store rooms behind the exhibition rooms of the Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle, County Durham, lie hundreds of examples of tapestry and embroidery.

These works of art have remained unseen for decades, but a new textile conservator, Anne-Marie Hughes, has been appointed to restore some of the pieces to the standard required for public display.

The museum owns about 450 items of 17th to 19th Century embroidered textiles. After the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Burrell collection, it is the third largest textile collection Britain.

However, only one per cent of the museum's textiles are on display to the public. Keeper of textiles Joanna Hashagen hopes to redress the balance.

She said: "For the last ten years, I have been seriously trying to find money for a textile conservator. We have got enough textiles here to keep a small team busy.

"Textiles have traditionally been undervalued as an artform, but they are becoming more fashionable now.

"Things like our wedding dresses exhibition have proved extremely popular. I think people can relate to textiles better.

"Not everybody has oil paintings on their wall, but we all wear clothes."

Ms Hughes trained at the Textile Conservation Centre, in Winchester, and worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the US, and Liverpool's National Museum before she joined the Bowes Museum.

Her appointment has been funded for three years by the Pilgrim Trust, and she will concentrate on restoring the large collection of embroidered seat and chair covers collected by the museum.

Because each piece takes an average of 30 hours to restore, a survey is being undertaken to find out how much work is needed and what can be done.

A lot of the restoration work involves repairing frayed and worn fabrics and washing the embroidery.

This is a difficult process because many of the dyes used can easily run. However, Ms Hughes has pioneered a method of cleaning that does not allow the dye enough time to run.

She said: "It is fascinating work because this is such a unique and wide ranging collection.

"The pieces range from really important pieces with traceable designs to quite obscure designs, but they are all lovely in their own right.

"They are amazingly intricate, with fantastic colours. The colours were always bright as they were needed to compensate for the dimness of the candlelight."

Each item is also being photographed to allow people to study the collection without having to visit the museum.

Mrs Hashagen, however, hopes to provide study space for people who want to see the collection first-hand. She also intends to publish a small book about it.

She said: "It is important that we get as much public access to the textiles as possible.

"We are really pleased to have Anne-Marie here. She is probably the best in the country at what she does and I am sure she is going to have a huge impact on the museum."

Published: 02/01/2004