Rare 17th-century paper cuttings unearthed at Hackney’s historic Sutton House

A pile of papers found under the floorboards of a Tudor manor house in Hackney back in the 1980s but never studied have revealed that some of them are very rare examples of 17th-century papercutting.

The 500-year-old Sutton House in Hackney was built for one of Henry VIII’s statesmen and over its lifetime it was home to different families and used for different purposes including a girls’ school in the 17th century.

During the National Trust’s renovation of the house in the late 1980s, hundreds of pieces of ephemera found under floorboards were carefully stored away.

These finds went uncatalogued for over 30 years until last year, when a team of volunteers began sorting through bags of centuries-old builders’ rubble, discarded textiles, paper, bones, and other objects that had been lost over time.

Among the finds were a small number of cut-out paper designs, only a few centimetres in size, some hand-coloured. Eight of these have been dated to the late 17th century, when papercutting as a pastime in the UK was in its infancy, and are extremely rare survivors of the craft.

Dating from the time when Sutton House was a school for girls, the paper discoveries include an intricate folded paper star, hand-coloured cut-outs of a fox and a female figure bathing, and a hen with added green and pink silk embellishment. There are also black-and-white cut-outs of a bird and a country couple in period clothing.

The cutting out of prints in the 17th century was an art form usually undertaken by girls or women and a skill they could use to showcase their taste and dexterity. Paper folding, as exemplified in the small star identified at Sutton House, was an increasingly popular European fashion, especially for elaborate napkin-folding for entertaining.

Paper cutting was taught to girls along with other crafts such as embroidery and needlework. Designs from books could be cut out, using tiny pairs of scissors, knives and even pins, and then hand-coloured to decorate boxes and other items.

Due to the ephemeral nature of the art form, only a few examples from this time survive but the practice could well have been the forerunner to the print rooms of the 18th century and decoupage that was popular among Victorians.

Dr Isabella Rosner, an expert in early modern material culture, identified the paper cuttings at Sutton House which are almost identical to only two other known surviving examples, one of which is a decorative box dating to the 1680s held in a collection at Witney Antiques in Oxfordshire.

She explained: “Paper cutting for decoration was a subject in various household management books for women in the 17th century, notably by Hannah Woolley, such as ‘A Guide to Ladies’ (1668) and ‘A Supplement to the Queen-Like Closet (1674). She described the ‘cutting of Prints, and adorning Rooms or Cabinets, or Stands with them,’ as skills which ‘I shall be willing to impart to them, who are desirous to learn.’”

Dr Rosner continued: “In the middle of the 17th century, Hackney was the centre of girls’ education in England, and from 1657 Sutton House was a girls’ school under the lead of Sarah Freeman. It is believed that Hannah Woolley who also established a school in Hackney with her husband may have taught at Sutton House after she was widowed, and so it is possible the paper cut-outs identified were carried out by pre-teen and teenage girls under her tutelage.

“The prints found underneath the Sutton House floorboards are hugely exciting, as they give us glimpses into the rich material world of middle and upper-class schoolgirls 350 years ago.”

Kate Simpson, National Trust Senior Collections and House Officer said: “We are thrilled that such an exciting discovery has been made at Sutton House.

“We have long known about the role of Sutton House as a girls’ school over its lifetime but with few details about the classes, the pupils or teaching. This discovery brings to vivid life one of the skills that pupils were taught and the painstaking process of handling, cutting, and colouring such tiny pieces of paper.

“Yet this is an art form that is relatable today, it has lost none of its fascination, with paper crafts still popular among people of all ages. As part of our display of the 17th-century paper cut-outs and how they were rediscovered, we are inviting visitors to think about crafting in the modern age and the ways we can create with our hands just as the schoolgirls were creating their imaginary worlds with paper centuries ago.”

The paper-cuttings will be on display at Sutton House until December 2024.

Sutton House is open on Fridays and Sundays — pricing details here.