Bread on wallpaper: The best spring cleaning hacks according to English Heritage

With spring almost upon us and lockdown stretching on, you may be thinking about a deep clean of the house. But, according to English Heritage, you can forget the modern chemical cleaners: some unusual household items may do the job even better.

During a clean of some of their properties, English Heritage conservators tested some Victorian-era cleaning methods ahead of the planned reopening in May.

At that time, they had to use what was already around the house, so many of the cleaning hacks incorporate food items such as milk and bread.

As part of its experiment, English Heritage tried different kinds of milk for cleaning the stone floors at Brodsworth Hall in Yorkshire. Between skimmed, semi-skimmed and full-fat, it found skimmed milk worked the best.

Timber floors enjoyed a dose of beeswax and turpentine, while a simple chamois leather was all that was needed to get mirrors shining again.

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White bread proved to remove an impressive amount of dirt from wallpaper, although the crumbs must be vacuumed up to avoid pests.

“It does work, although it does need to be fresh white bread – stale bread would be too abrasive. I tried it with some of my sourdough and it was surprisingly effective. It’s very gentle,” said head of collections conservation at English Heritage, Amber Xavier-Rowe.

However, some of the old cleaning methods aren’t recommended today. English Heritage doesn’t advise rubbing a sliced potato on an oil painting; or using salt and Worcestershire sauce to clean silver. It also doesn’t suggest leaving paintings in direct sunlight to get rid of mould.

Given the era, Ms Xavier-Rowe was impressed by how well some of the cleaning methods worked.

She added: “Although we may not recommend some of the more bizarre tips, housekeepers of the past were often spot-on with their methods, despite relatively little scientific knowledge.”