ALTAR KNEELERS AT SHOREHAM CHURCH
It must have been around 2003 that the idea occurred to me whilst waiting my turn to take communion in church. I watched those ahead of me kneeling on the carpet in the middle of the altar rail and thought a new and complete altar kneeler was rather necessary. I looked into designs from the hassock specialists at Hebden Bridge, which didn’t appeal at all. Gill Hitchcock told me that a relative of theirs had been involved in stitching kneelers for St. Nicholas’ in Sevenoaks. I called there on the off chance and was allowed into the church to have a look. Things snowballed from then on. I was encouraged by a very nice lady who had been in charge of their project to seek the advice of Angela Dewar a designer of kneelers and altar frontals. This I did - she lives at Southborough and proved a great help. She visited the church several times, noted the décor, took lots of photographs of various salient features and finally produced a design which included the pomegranate emblem of Katharine of Aragon in a cruciform, the fleur de lys on the organ pipes, the Tudor rose and the grape vine design on the top of the rood screen. She suggested the apricot background to echo the colour of the Burne-Jones window. At first this colour was not considered appropriate by some of the ladies, but with gentle persuasion I won the day and apricot it is. A carpet of exactly the same shade was chosen and paid for by The Friends of Shoreham Church. The whole scheme was financed by coffee mornings and some very generous donations. The PCC was not asked to contribute at all! Also St. Nicholas Church had ordered the wrong shade for their own kneelers and gave me most of the background wool which was just what we wanted – the colour is a mixture of two shades.
The total length required for the kneeler was 17 feet, made up of three equal sections. David constructed a door sized frame out of plastic pipes onto which I attached the canvas for each section and so began our weekly sessions all seated round the frame. I was cheerfully and consistently assisted by Gill Hitchcock, Cynthia Haysey, Lesley Spence, Sylvia Lyons and Anne Peploe (who sadly died before the project was completed); Ann Ball and Clare Fowler also lent a hand. We were a happy bunch of stitchers each doing our own piece until we completed the first one. Angela Dewar came over to instruct me how to treat the canvas and stretch it with staples onto an old door covered with a dampened towel. Fortunately it was summer and could remain in the garden to dry. A second canvas followed and then a third, taking between 2 and 3 years to complete. Dear Gwen Gillham was a great help in making up the kneelers by putting the completed canvases on the foam pads and adding a hessian base. They would not have looked so professional without her skill. She also made the curtains for the choir stalls and vestry. In fact none of it could have happened without the support of so many very kind people. A wedding kneeler, vicar’s kneeler and cushion have since been added in more or less the same design.
Liz Nash.
