After being missing for more than a decade, a 17th Century Shakespeare First Folio is on public display in Durham. Steve Pratt finds out why a conservator is handling it with care.

IT was the first – and only – time Liz Branigan, senior conservator at Durham University, has appeared in court. She was minding a key piece of evidence.

Two policemen escorted her and the item from the university library, but she was the only person allowed to touch it.

When the evidence is a 17th Century book worth an estimated £1.5m, you can look, but not touch. Unless you’re Ms Branigan.

The rare Shakespeare First Folio, stolen more than 12 years ago, played a key role in the trial of Raymond Scott. Cleared of stealing the “brutally damaged” folio – one of seven books and manuscripts taken from Palace Green Library, in Durham City, in December 1998 – he was jailed for handling stolen goods and removing stolen property from the UK.

The book, the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, is thought to be one of only 230 in existence. It’s the only known copy to have stayed in the same personal library since its purchase by John Cosin, a former Bishop of Durham, in the 17th Century, The stolen copy surfaced ten years after the theft, when Scott walked into the Bolger Shakespeare Library, in Washington DC and handed over a book he claimed to have discovered in Cuba.

Suspicious officials called in the experts who established it as the missing Durham copy, despite the fact that the book had been “brutally damaged” with missing pages and loose binding in a bid to disguise its identity.

The First Folio goes on public display from Saturday in the new Wolfson Gallery, in Durham, following a £2.3m refurbishment – safely locked away in a glass case.

The book is the centrepiece of The Treasures of Durham University exhibition that runs until March 6. After that, Ms Branigan will get her hands – gloved, of course – on it again to carry out conservation work and restore it to its former glory.

At the press launch yesterday, a facsimile version of the First Folio was available for filming and photography purposes. The real thing is reserved for Ms Branigan only to handle.

She was the person who checked it for damage when the book was flown back to this country.

Because of its condition, she was the only one allowed to handle it for prosecution and defence experts, or when forensic scientists needed to examine it on behalf of the police.

When the case came to court, once again she was the sole person allowed to touch the book.

Now she’s looking forward to repairing the damage.

“In terms of some of the stuff we get in the conservation unit, it’s not that serious apart from the fact that the binding is missing and the first and last pages gone completely,” she explains.

“Taking the binding off it damaged the sewing, so the first few pages have started to come off from the leaf and because there are loose pages the edges are starting to get damaged.”

Conservators will repair the sewing by laying new cords over those that remain. The damaged pages will be repaired with Japanese paper and wheat starch paste and re-sewn on to the new cords.

New boards – the hard covers – will be made and laced on to the cords. The First Folio will be rebound in dark blue goatskin. The previous binding, added in the 19th Century, was made from dark brown goatskin.

“In total, the work to be done amounts to no more than two or three weeks, but it will be done over a long period of time. You would do a bit and leave it to dry, then return to do another bit later,” she says.

The value of an item isn’t something that conservators consciously consider. “We don’t stop to think about that. It’s just something we have to do,” says Ms Branigan.

“The First Folio is like any other book. We give as much care and consideration to all of them. They are all subject to a high level of security.”

She’s also involved with the North-East Collections Care Framework that advises and helps museums and archives throughout the region in partnership with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and Bowes Museum.

“It’s been great, I must have visited every museum and archive in the North-East and it means they can get free advice on how to look after their collections and monitor environmental conditions. We run training days and a helpline,” says Ms Branigan, who’s been working in conservation for 25 years.

“The exciting thing about the work is it changes all the time. We get many challenges and have to do a lot of research and find new techniques. There have been huge scientific developments.”

OTHER treasures on display have been drawn from collections across the university, including the Oriental Museum, Durham Castle and Palace Green Library.

They include a leaf of a Bede manuscript written in the ninth Century, WH Auden’s first published work, an astronomical clock from the Qing Dynasty and a statuette of a Nubian slave girl dating to 1360BC.

But the centrepiece is the First Folio featuring “Mr William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies”. The investigation following the theft was not much ado about nothing, despite cries of “Folio, folio, wherefore art thou Folio?” but, to borrow the title of one of the Bard of Avon’s work, all’s well that ends well. The book is back where it belongs.

■ The Treasures of Durham University exhibition is at the Wolfson Gallery, Palace Green Library, Durham City, from Saturday.

The Shakespeare First Folio is on display until March 6.

■ For information about the exhibition, opening times and prices, contact 0191-334- 2972, email pg.library@durham.ac.uk or visit dur.ac/uk/library/asc/exhibitions/ treasures/