Blenheim Palace wallpaper restoration work begins
A collection of antique wallpaper at Blenheim Palace is being restored for the first time in 189 years.
The delicate design bears hand-painted scenes by French manufacturer Joseph Dufour depicting a tiger hunt in India.
It is being removed and restored as part of a year-long, £50,000 project to restore the historic Oxfordshire home's Indian Room.
The 19 panels which make up the design were a rare example of Dufour paper left in situ, a palace spokesman said.
Many have been split up and sold as individual pieces, he said.
A team of experts will re-line each section of the wallpaper and fill in damaged areas.
One of the first panels taken down revealed a carving in the stone wall from 1826.
The highly-decorated Indian Room was commissioned by the 5th Duke of Marlborough, George Spencer-Churchill.
Blenheim Palace, near Woodstock, is the birthplace and ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill.