When it comes to preserving historic artefacts and furniture, Pamela Keeton has the Midas touch.

Pamela, from Keighley, is one of only a handful of specialists in the region using gilding skills to preserve objects from the past.

Her interest in art and history led her to undertake an HND course in conservation and restoration at Lincoln College, where she eventually became a part-time lecturer in the subject.

Since completing her studies in the 1980s, Pamela has worked predominantly restoring furniture and artefacts from National Trust properties and other historic stately homes, but her most recent assignment was gilding part of a staircase, plaque and mouldings surrounding a silk damask wall-hanging as part of a major restoration of Cliffe Castle’s Grand Drawing Room.

The museum is the former home of Victorian industrialist Henry Isaac Butterfield. Funding from various sources, including Renaissance Yorkshire and the Friends of Cliffe Castle, has enabled the restoration of the once-elaborate drawing room – which was painted white when it became a museum in the 1950s – to its original glory.

Pamela was approached by the museum manager to lend her expertise to the project. “He had this plan to improve its general appearance and massive foresight to make it look like the country house it should look like,” says Pamela.

Original surfaces lost under layers of paint have been restored, along with the elaborate damask silk wall-hanging painstakingly reproduced from pictures and material remnants.

Gilding is defined as the decorative technique of applying fine metallic leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone or metal.

Pamela uses 23-and-a-half carat gold leaf, bought in books. The oldest method of applying gold leaf is water gilding. “It hasn’t really changed since the Middle Ages,” says Pamela. “It is used for higher-class pieces and it is entirely water-based. It can be used on frames and furniture as well.”

She explains that the process begins with a layer of chalk (gesso) and animal-based glue followed by bole, which is a clay-based material. The gold leaf is applied to the bole and the piece is then polished with a burnisher.

Pamela’s first assignment after leaving college was working on a pole screen for Temple Newsam museum in Leeds.

She spent six years working in a Sheffield workshop, specialising in the restoration of decorative surfaces, objects and furniture for stately homes such as Chatsworth House in Derbyshire and Uppark, a National Trust property in West Sussex.

Pamela has worked on several historic pieces created by world-renowned furniture maker Thomas Chippendale, who was born in Otley.

“I have worked on quite a lot of Chippendale furniture and really enjoyed it because sometimes it has not been interfered with by way of previous restoration. You can see other workmen’s touches,” says Pamela.

“I find it intriguing that there may be the odd message or scrawl you can see where people have made marks and where they have had to correct them. It is very interesting to see the tool marks and the impressions of where people have been.”

In the mid-1990s Pamela became self-employed. Originally from Nottingham, she moved to Keighley to be with her partner, who works in the museum sector. She was lecturing part-time until 2002 when she had her second child.

Another interesting project she has been involved with was gilding mirror frames in the ballroom at Burton Constable, near Hull. “They were taken down piece by piece. We cleaned them and conserved them and put them back up again,” says Pamela.

She also gilded the mirror frames and a selection of pieces in Treasurer’s House, a National Trust property in York. “They were re-decorating, taking it back to a particular person’s life span. I did a number of mirror frames and a selection of pieces,” says Pamela.

“I love the historical connection to start with and the historic objects are beautiful. I love the materials – I just love working with gold leaf. I don’t get bored of the feel of laying it and burnishing it.

“What I particularly like doing are conservation pieces where I may have one damaged area and I have to match it and make it work. It’s making something whole again.

“The real challenge is preserving as much of the surface as you possibly can.”