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Pictured: Conservation Cleaning Supervisor, Tracie Mason inspects the ornate ceiling in the State Drawing Room which was inspired by a ceiling in St Mark’s Basilica, Venice.

Expert conservation cleaners are embarking on their painstaking annual spring clean of one of Britain's finest Elizabethan stately homes.

Longleat House in Wiltshire has 128 rooms containing thousands of historic objects which require careful cleaning using low-suction vacuum cleaners and fine dry brushes.

There are also seven libraries with over 40,000 books which need dusting and repairing.