Needlewomen

 

Friends of St Mary's Church, Cricklade, Wiltshire, U.K.

 

Chairman: Hugh Dudley, 4 Pleydells, Cricklade, SWINDON, SN6 6NG

Secretary: Gerry Dudley, 4 Pleydells, Cricklade, SWINDON, SN6 6NG

Treasurer: Tony Barratt, 13 Boundary Close, Stratton, SWINDON, SN2 7TF

 

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The Evening Advertiser 30 Apr 1999

 

 Needlewomen gather to restore delicate altar cloth

 

 

Fragile . . . Bernadette Yarnold with the altar cloth from St Mary's Church, Cricklade         Picture: STUART HARRISON

 

DELICATE restoration work is about to start on a piece of Cricklade history dating back to the start of the century.

   Work will soon begin on a fragile embroidered altar front which was given to St Mary's Church, Cricklade, in 1905.

   The intricate cloth, measuring 7ft by 3ft, took its designer, Cicely Laura Butt-Miller several years to embroider and includes the Snakehead Fritillary as one of the main motifs.

   Although the special cloth still

retains the glossy colours of 90 years ago, it now needs to be rebacked.

   After advice from a member of the Royal School of Needlewomen, a restoration group of four paishioners will cut the design from its original silk with surgical scissors and transfer it to a new backing.

   The work, which is being carried out by Bernadette Yarnold, of Ashton Keynes, Pat Charlton and Helen Lee, of Cricklade, and Mary Pugh, of South Cerney, will take

nine months to complete.

   Mrs Yarnold said: "We want to restore the embroidery because it is a lovely piece of work, it took the lady who made it some considerable years to create it."

   A frame for the embroidery is being made by Friends of St Mary's chairman, Tim Cheesman and will be set up in a room at Brook House in the High Street, Cricklade --- the former home of Cicely Laura Butt.

 

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