Like a moth to a precious tapestry

A campaign to save heritage fabrics from one of our most destructively proliferating insects is going well

- Ian Morton

THE ghost of Anne Boleyn is one of several wraiths said to walk the panelled galleries and musty rooms of Blickling Hall in Norfolk, owned by the National Trust. ‘Well, I’ve never seen any of them,’ admits Hilary Jarvis. An assistant conservator for the Trust, she is in pragmatic pursuit of a more tangible presence. The early-17th-century country house is haunted by clothes moths and currently the focus of a new offensive, which is being watched by all who suffer the depredations of moth larvae that chew holes in valued fabrics, be they in modest homes or regal palaces.

Mrs Jarvis, house steward Ellie Hobbs and their team are adopting a pest-control system that has proved its worth in agriculture, a natural double hit that avoids treatments that would damage fragile materials. In 2020, the Trust caught more than 62,000 moths in 6,800 traps in 173 historic houses—which is a record. As the moth population has boomed at Blickling, the house is a crucial test bed.

The experiment involves the UK’s two material-munching moth species: the indigenous case-bearing clothes moth (Tinea pellionella) and the more virulent, silvery-buff common or webbing clothes moth (Tineola bisselliella)—the real villain, which was probably introduced during the ‘big game’ era of the 19th century, in furs and skins imported from South Africa.

This moth-busting campaign involves two new elements in a broad, integrated pest management (IPM) technique favoured by the Trust. Artificial pheromones—matching those transmitted by the female moth—are stored on tabs, which are renewed every two or three months and attach electrostatically to the antenna and bodies of males to prevent them from finding and fertilising females.