PRICELESS – and fragile – remnants of an elegant age have gone back on show after undergoing conservation work.

The rare silk damask four-poster bed pelmets have been restored by Barnard Castle-based National Trust conservator Caroline Rendell.

She spent more than 100 hours restoring the pelmets for one of the bedrooms at Beningbrough Hall, near York.

The valances are 250- years-old and unsympathetic restoration in the past was threatening them with permanent damage.

Now, the pelmets, which are part of a set of bedhangings on an equally rare Rococo four-poster in the hall’s Blue Bedroom, are back on display.

Ms Rendell said: “The fact the pelmets have survived in their original state is very rare, and with the bed itself being of a type that is quite unusual, we saw this as a conservation priority.

“In the past, the pelmets had quite bizarrely been repaired with machine stitching and, over time, that had become very tight, distorting the fabric and damaging it badly.

“We removed the stitching and it was then possible to realign the 18th Century silk and get it all straight.”