Opulent interiors at the Great Tower of Dover Castle

Bold continues to banish bland. The new taste for pattern has brought with it a resurgence of craft techniques that allow people to bedeck their formerly minimalist, even austere, interiors with flowers, birds and any number of other motifs. And this has brought new inspiration both to those working on contemporary schemes and those involved with restorations, such as that just completed at the medieval stone keep at Dover Castle, on England’s south-east coast.

As the greatest castle-builder of his age, King Henry II lavishly furnished and decorated the impressive Great Tower with all the design input available in the 12th century. Now, in an ambitious £2m project organised by UK conservation agency English Heritage, a stunning collection of furniture, wall-hangings, textiles, pottery, silverware and other objects has been created by British craftspeople to decorate the keep in a style suited to a royal visit, circa 1184.

What is significant is that none of the furnishings is a replica or reproduction of an original piece. Instead, each is a new design created in a 12th-century idiom. “This is very much a design exercise,” says Dr Edward Impey, a medieval historian and director of the project at English Heritage. “We wanted to avoid direct reference to recognisable 12th-century sources, so although the designs are loosely based on original pieces they mainly draw on the aesthetics of the period. It’s experimental archaeology.”

The task of reinterpreting 12th-century design fell to Kit Surrey, an acclaimed theatre set designer, and his wife Meg, a scenic artist. “English Heritage wanted an element of drama because Dover Castle is a visitor attraction, not a museum, so I was given a fairly free rein,” says Kit.

Kit Surrey works on a wall mural

“When I first saw the spaces it seemed a totally daunting project. Initially I photographed the rooms and made drawings of the empty spaces, then began to populate them with furniture and wall-hangings. It took time to get under the skin of the period. Meg and I immersed ourselves in documents, books and manuscripts and visited Canterbury Cathedral. I was very keen to avoid copies or pastiche so I’d draw a chest and add ironwork detail based on an extant source, then play around with it until Jane Geddes, a medieval ironwork expert, told me I’d created something new.” Nor have any pieces been “distressed” to appear old because, as he points out, “everything in the Great Tower was new in 1184 as the building had just been completed. Dover Castle was King Henry II’s big showcase and it was filled with contemporary designs.”

In all, well over a thousand items have been designed and fabricated. These include a chair and bed fit for the king, 21 doors and 16 chests with decorative ironwork, intricately carved and gilded chairs and other furniture, silk and woollen textiles, hand-embroidered cushions, animal-shaped water vessels, huge silver dishes and drinking cups, enamelled porcelain candlesticks and caskets, pottery jugs, bowls and lidded cooking pots.

Kit describes 12th-century design as “very gutsy”. “The wood-turning on chairs, for example, was simple but robust and powerful. There’s nothing spindly or etiolated about it. The ironwork was hand-made so each piece had individuality. Yet nothing is crude. There’s delicacy and subtlety to it.”

“The level of craftsmanship was much more sophisticated than we’d imagined,” he adds. “Like any artisans, they pushed techniques to the limit. The delicacy of the ironwork and the brilliance of the colours was extraordinary. We knew they had lots of wall-paintings and wall-hangings but the real surprise was their use of colour, which was very bold and striking.”

And, as Meg observes, “there was a real desire to decorate every surface at this level of expenditure. Unpainted furniture and doors were considered very low status.”

A cushion embroidered by prison inmates

Because Dover Castle is a scheduled monument it wasn’t possible to paint directly on the walls, so Meg and her team hand-painted more than 100 metres of linen canvas to emulate 12th-century wall-painted friezes. “I tried to get a flat chalkiness by using coarsely ground pigments in earth colours on the larger areas – red oxides, terre verte, yellow ochre and umbers, ” she says. “I’d imagined 12th-century figure painting would be crude but it was actually very well observed and the brushwork was beautiful.”

Wool for wall hangings was dyed to specific period colours and 48 linen and silk cushions, decorated with medieval motifs, were painstakingly hand-embroidered using 12th-century stitches, such as stem stitch, by prisoners in 15 British jails. This is the first time that Fine Cell Work, a charity that teaches needlework to prisoners and sells products on their behalf, has been involved with a public heritage project.

Four main rooms are now furnished – the King’s Hall, the King’s Chamber, the Great Hall, where the king and his entourage took their meals, and the Guest Chamber, where important guests slept. “Each of the four rooms intentionally has a different feel and character to suit its different purpose,” says Kit. “We tried to give the Great Hall an atmosphere of conviviality by hanging heraldic shields on the walls and using wall-hangings in two colours to resemble a tent interior. And we used fictive [faux] drapery – a technique frequently used in medieval wall-painting – on hangings in the Guest Chamber.”

The kitchens and armoury have been re-created while a number of smaller spaces, within the castle’s thick walls, have also been refurbished – most notably with stained glass made by Anthony Bristow of Bath Architectural Glass. “We tried to get away from pious Victorian Gothic and create a bolder, more vibrant look,” says Kit, who adapted the designs from windows in Canterbury Cathedral. “It looks absolutely authentic and brings jewel-like colour to the rather dour chapels.”

The King’s Chair of State

The furniture was made by NEJ Stevenson, a royal warrant-holding cabinetmaker based in Warwickshire, central England. Despite previous commissions for historic buildings, director Neil Stevenson says: “Making 12th-century furniture was a new venture for us. We had to work out the best methods of construction that would be sympathetic to the materials and techniques of the period. Replicating exact medieval processes would be very expensive and labour-intensive so we used the best of modern technology with as many hand-jointing and hand-crafting techniques as possible.”

Stevenson’s company has made 70 pieces. Does he think the project will generate similar commissions from intrigued home-owners? “They could well pick up design ideas but I think it’s unlikely we’ll get orders because most pieces are so big,” he says.

Still, Kit Surrey believes the project “might well inspire a more colourful, elaborate approach to contemporary living spaces”. He admits to an unexpected personal response. “I thought I’d have no connection with the period, yet I gained a great respect both for the designs and the craftsmanship,” he says. “There’s a boldness, vibrancy and gutsiness about 12th-century design that’s very appealing.”

Dover Castle is open to the public daily until November 1.