Moths dine on stately home relics

WITH the ending of lockdown, Britain’s stately homes have opened once more to visitors.

But after being closed for months on end, there has been a proliferation of some rather less welcome guests: moths.

Numbers have soared by a third and experts are concerned they could eat important collections of tapestries, carpets, clothing and other antique fabrics.

They have already nibbled into the knickerbockers worn by playwright George Bernard Shaw at his former country home, Shaw’s Corner in Welwyn, Hertfordshire. At Blickling Hall, the Norfolk birthplace of Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn, the pests have damaged the foot of a stuffed rabbit.

A tapestry that once belonged to Russian Empress Catherine the Great is also vulnerable.

The scale of the moth incursion was discovered after the latest audit of 173 properties run by the National Trust.

Assistant national conservator Hilary Jarvis said: ‘Our resident moths have been very busy enjoying a good deal more freedom than the rest of us.’