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Playing with wax seals

Posted in Behind the Scenes on 03 Feb 2025

Last summer one of our volunteers, S. Lawrence, worked on repairing a seal on a deed from the Hercy family estate collection relating to Bray, Binfield and Winkfield (ref. D/EHE/T2). This blog reveals what they did in their own words with minor editing given in square brackets [ ].

A wrapped seal attached to a deed, 1606, ref. D/EHE/T2

During my summer volunteering for the Royal Berkshire Archives, I was able to do a wax seal repair with Sue [the RBA Senior Conservator] as my supervisor. I worked on the seal over the course of two ½ days restoring it so it would appear more similar to its original state. The great seal was from the reign of James I in 1606, the seals were used to confirm a document had been signed and verified by the sovereign.

Damaged seal in pieces attached to a deed by a plaited cord, 1606, ref. D/EHE/T2

Previously, normal uncoloured beeswax had been used for seals, the added colour appears to act as a preservative allowing seals after the reign of Elizabeth I to be better preserved. These great seals often break apart into smaller pieces overtime and are enclosed within paper or card and metal skippets to preserve them. This wax seal however was enclosed in four playing cards which were from the same time period as the seal as the cards appear to be very old and all hand painted. Sue mentioned how she had never seen this before making it pretty unique to this seal.

Damaged seal with playing cards used as wrapping, 1606, ref. D/EHE/T2

Bundles of deeds spread on a desk, ref. D/EHE/T2
To restore the seal, I first had to clean each of the broken pieces of the seal from dust and dirt but I also has to make sure I remembered where each of the smaller pieces went. I brushed most of the dirt and dust off with a small brush and using a cotton bud carefully cleaned each broken piece with water. Some of the pieces were still attached to the cord which attached the seal to the document which made it more difficult to full[y] clean them. After cleaning the pieces, the design on both sides became much clearer.

Next I had to join the pieces together with new wax of a similar colour as the seal itself. Using a small soldering iron and small pieces of wax I melted this new wax and dripped it onto the wax seal to join the broken pieces together or to fill in any large gaps that had pieces missing. This was fairly difficult as some pieces needed elevating slightly so they would join up correctly or part of the original wax had completely disintegrated so large portions of the seal needed to be filled in. I did this on both sides of the seal and it was the longest part of the process.

Repaired seal, 1606, ref. D/EHE/T2

Finally, the last part of the process was cleaning up all the excess wax used in the process, smoothing over or adding more new wax so the shape of the original seal could be seen clearly. This was done with lighter fluid, an empty felt tip pen and cotton buds and was a long process. The lighter fluid did not damage the old wax but was able to remove the new wax to reveal any parts of the seal that had been slightly covered. Eventually I just had to use cotton buds and small amounts of lighter fluid to carefully clean around the areas of the wax seal I had filled in.

Once the wax seal restoration was complete the original design on the wax seal could be seen clearly, the front shows James I in full armour mounted on a galloping horse with Latin inscriptions around it. The back shows a shield bearing the arms of the king with additional smaller design of dragons around it, there were also more Latin inscriptions round the edge of the seal.

Repaired seal, 1606, ref. D/EHE/T2
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as it was something very niche that I had never done before, and I had never done anything similar. I was very proud of the end result, and it was incredibly interesting to see the different and unique methods used to restore the wax seal. The whole restoration process was very insightful and being able to see what James I’s great seal would have originally looked like was amazing.

Ends

Here at the RBA, we are very thankful for the help that our volunteers freely give us. Whilst we have limited capacity for volunteers, if you are interested in helping us with aspects such as box listing, preservation/conservation work, piece numbering items and more, then please drop us a line. You can find out more about volunteering on our website.