Interior of the central hall, Wallington with paintings and decoration by William Bell Scott, Alexander Munro, John Ruskin, and Pauline Trevelyan. Wallington, Northumbria. Courtesy Wallington, the National Trust.
The first two panels in William Bell Scott's narrative sequence can be seen on the right: The Romans cause a wall to be built and, next, King Edfrid and Bishop Trumwine persuade Cuthbert to leave his seclusion on the Farne Islands and become Bishop of Hexham 684. (The sequence alternates between key historical events and famous personages in Northumbrian history.) Between these two panels is one of the pilasters which Pauline Trevelyan painted herself: the pilasters had been scrubbed down ready for painting on 4 July 1856, and she noted in her diary that she "worked at my poppies a little" while people were visiting on July 7 (qtd. in Batchelor 114). Ruskin painted oats and wheat on another pillar, which this photograph doesn't show. The two most clearly visible medallion portraits between the tops of the arches are (from the left) Pauline's husband Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, and his cousin Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan (whose features, including the sideburns, were used for the the central labourer in Iron and Coal). — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Batchelor, John. Lady Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. London: Chatto & Windus, 2006. [review by JB]
Last modified 26 January 2007