Restoring the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall

Previously I blogged my first visit to the famous Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The reaction was pretty much:

O! M! G!

I can see why they call it the Sistine Chapel of London. The photo above shows just one end of the hall: the ceiling is equally epic. It was painted by James Thornhill at the rather bargain price of "£7000, based on a rate of £1 per square yard for the walls and £3 per square yard for the ceilings".

But alas since completion in 1727 it has had to put up with the "old smoke" and time has not been kind, so parts look a bit like this:

How do I know this? Well it is currently being restored and they are running tours up the scaffolding to have a look up close to the ceiling:

If you follow this link to the old post there's a photo of the ceiling and you can see this figure at the top left, who is Apollo the sun god.

The guide gave a detailed description of the paintings which I've pretty much forgotten but will give it a go in the next post. I might get quite a bit wrong....