INTRICATELY decorated 189-year-old wallpaper will be painstakingly restored as Blenheim Palace’s Indian Room undergoes renovation over the coming year.

The restoration of the room is expected to take 12 months and cost £50,000.

One of the greatest challenges has been working on the the handpainted wallpaper, a French design created by renowned French painter Bernard Dufour.

It was first created in the early 1800s. There are 19 complete panels displaying the scene of a tiger hunt in India.

Panels have been cut from the wall, before the delicate paper is removed and then touched up by hand in meticulous detail by a team of experts to blend in with the original.

Palace spokeswoman Melodie Manners said: “It is rare to find a complete set of panels still in situ, as the majority of sets have been broken up over the years and sold as individual pieces.”

The paper has never been removed before and has already turned up an exciting discovery. Behind the wallpaper, carved into the stone was a note written in 1826 by Joseph Donbury Moran from Bladon.

The decoration of the Indian Room was first commissioned by George Spencer-Churchill, 5th Duke of Marlborough in 1826.

He was the eldest son of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, and Lady Caroline Russell.

George SpencerChurchill was educated at Eton between 1776 and 1783 and at Christ Church, Oxford between 1784 and 1786, where he graduated in 1786 as a Bachelor of Arts.

He became famous for his extravagant taste in collecting antiques, but built up huge debts and was eventually forced to live at Blenheim Palace off a small pension from Queen Anne.

The Indian Room overlooks the water terraces and the formal gardens at the palace, which were designed by landscape gardener Achille Duchene in 1925.

The room is still open to visitors and restoration will be complete by February 2016.