Professor Robert and Eve Baker

Professor Eve Baker led the team that worked on the wall paintings in St. Mary Belchamp Walter in 1964.

Professors Robert and Eve Baker pioneered the revival of the use of lime for the repair of historic buildings in the UK. Eve Baker is quoted in Parish histories for the restoration of the wall paintings but there was nothing to explain the relevance of their work with respect to Belchamp Walter.

The Bakers were renown conservationalists and although their speciality was the repair of lime structures, such as Wells Catherdral, they also were involved in the restoratation of Medieval Wall Painting

The restoration of the Medieval Wall Paintings

The restoration was supervided by professor Eve Baker and was funded by the Pilgrim Trust. She uncovered not only the Madonna and Child to which the Church is dedicated she also uncovered a number of other paintings including:

a Passion Cycle
a Pelican in Her Piety
The Martyrdom of St. Edmund
and part of a Three Living and Three Dead composition.

The wall paintings were white-washed over in the reformation and remained hidden until about 1964. It is not known how they were discovered but it is believed that some of the paintings were destroyed when the chancel arch was restored and the chancel extended in 1859.

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The Medieval wall painting in St Mary the Virgin Belchamp Walter

The Baker Memorial Lecture

Researching the Bakers I found:

The Baker Memorial Lecture is an annual event, held by the Building Limes Forum in memory of Professor Robert and Eve Baker, who pioneered the revival of the use of lime for the repair of historic buildings in the UK with their work on the conservation of the west front of Wells Cathedral between 1975 and 1984.

The Baker Memorial Lecture is given by somebody eminent in the world of lime and can take any aspect of lime as the theme: lime in conservation, lime in traditional building skills, lime for sustainability, or lime in the life of the speaker.

under the auspices of - idiom - formal

.... with the help and support of (someone or something)

The donation was made under the auspices of the local historical society.

Another example of the use of the word "auspices":

The research is being done under the auspices of the federal government.

The usege of came from the account of Samuel Philip Raymond about the restoration of the wall paintings in Belchamp Walter. The usage was copied from his church guide of 1965.

The Eve Baker Trust - Hirst Conservation Ltd

Hirst Conservation Ltd was established in 1986 by Elizabeth Hirst. Elizabeth was trained by Professor Robert Baker and Mrs Eve Baker, who were amongst the UK’s most eminent conservators of wall paintings and limestone sculpture. Elizabeth is actively involved in the development of Hirst Conservation Ltd as both a practical conservator and consultant. Hirst Conservation is on the Conservation Register and employs a number of conservators accredited through the PACR scheme.

Elizabeth Hirst ACR IHBC FRSA - Director & Principal Conservator

Following many years of training in medieval wall painting and stone conservation, Elizabeth became a senior conservator within the Eve Baker Trust. She subsequently went on to found Hirst Conservation in 1986 and manages a multi-disciplined organisation encompassing a wide range of skills and technical expertise.

Obituary - Mrs. Eve Baker - The Shroud of Turin website

After many Internet searches I found an obituary for Dr.Eve Baker on a website that presents information relating to the Shroud of Turin.

Mrs. Eve Baker, who carried out the first conservation work on the Templecombe panel painting during the mid 1950s, died on August 18, at the age of 84.

With her husband, Professor Robert Baker, Eve Baker travelled the length of the U.K. in an estate car piled high with bags of lime, different coloured sands, and other accessories, enthusiastically working on the conservation of mediaeval paintings.

She was passionate about the use of the most authentic materials and techniques, and roundly disapproved of any restoration verging on the conjectural.

Among the cathedrals where she worked were Canterbury, Chichester, Durham, St. Albans, Salisbury, and particularly notably Winchester, where she brought back to life the deeply moving, and arguably Shroud-related paintings of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel.

Eve Baker's death sadly leaves unanswered certain questions relating to the Templecombe panel, most notably a curious and possibly significant protrusion or nib which although evident in the earliest photos of the panel (BSTS Newsletter no. 17), had disappeared by the time the panel was handed back to the Templecombe Church on Easter Sunday, 1956.

The obituary is presented above as it was on the shroud.com website. I have added line breaks for better readabiliy.

While those that promote the notion that the Shroud of Turin was the burial coverings of Christ I am not sure that the obituary supports this view and whether the Baker's had similar thoughts. Their interests were in the conservation of historical artifacts, lime structures (Cathedrals) and medieval paintings, the provinance of those artifacts were not what they were about. In the contrary, as stated by the shroud.com, they were very much against the use of inappropriate materials and concept of speculation in regards to the restoration.

The Knights Templar and the Shroud of Turin

The connection between the Shroud of Turin and a medieval painting found on a panel in an English church that was seen to resemble the image that is well known as an image of Christ on a shroud that was reported to be the burial coverings from Christ's entombment in the Garden of Gethsemane is tenuous at best.

The carbon-dating of a painting to the 13th Century, a similar date to that of the Shroud of Turin, does not really add any credibility to any such connection. The fact that the painting was found in a chapel that was dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre would more readly explain the connection to the Knights Templar.

The connection between the Knights Templar and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is due to the fact that they built a church in London, Temple Church, in the Temple region - their London headquaters, in a style similar to the chapel in Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a 4th century church and the Templars captured Jerusalem in 1090 and made their headquaters in the Dome of the Rock.

The Templars were very powerful traders and bankers in the medieval period and the Temple Church was consecrated in 1185. The Templars were seen to be too powerful by Pope Clement V who disbanded the order in 1312.

Professor Robert and Eve Baker

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