The Chapel Kneelers
Our Object of the Month is kindly written by Esther Dean
Each month we feature two blogs by volunteers, one on an object in the Palace and another on a plant from the garden. There is no set format so please feel free to send in your ideas if you would like to contribute. It is an excellent way to learn more about the Palace and keep in touch from afar!
Back in 2015, the Palace Embroiderers (aka the Sewing Bee) were getting itchy fingers. After having very much enjoyed embroidering all the Bishops’ Badges they were looking for a new venture to fulfil their imaginative and creative talents. But what could they find to do that they would both enhance the Palace and satisfy their creativity?
At the same time the Rev Joe Hawes, then rector of All Saints and a trustee of the Palace was finding that he was celebrating many more wedding blessings in the Palace Chapel. However, there were no kneelers in the chapel for the bride and groom and other members of the congregation.
The embroiderers jumped at the suggestion that they make a set of kneelers for the chapel. There was much discussion as to the design and eventually it was decided, with the support of Sian Harrington, that we should use the badges of the Bishops, from Bishop Tait who had built the chapel in the 1860s, Creighton, Winnington-Ingram, Wand and Chartres. We merged this with seven generic Bishop of London crossed swords - a motif that is found all around the Palace. But none of these were suitable for the bride and groom!
So, we looked back through all the old badges. Back in the fourteenth century, we found the badge of Henry of Wingham, a heart held by angel’s wings – perfect.
Henry of Wingham’s badge
We then set about working out how to embroider, design and make up the kneelers. They needed to be hard-wearing, so we decided to use a fine tent stitch using tapestry wools. Originally, we thought we would use Bishop’s purple for the backing colour, but we decided that green was more fitting for the design and ecclesiastic needs.
We realised that they would need to be made to a very high quality to fulfil their purpose and that, though we were all very keen, none of us had sufficient expertise to fully carry out the project. We enlisted the help of the Royal School of Needlework (with the special assistance of Helen Richman) to guide us through the initial preparations, design, stitching and finishing.
So we set about mounting our canvases on large frames, transferring the designs to the canvas and learning the various stitches needed. Though they looked simple, we soon found that fitting in curves and circles required a lot of finesse! We would meet up every few weeks to survey our work, but most of the stitching was done in our own homes.
Then came the great day when the stitching was all finished and the canvases were taken off their frames, ready to be made up. We enlisted the help of NADFAS (now known as The Arts Society) volunteers in the making-up of the finished kneelers.
Finally, on 30th May 2017, the kneelers were taken to the chapel to be blessed. It is our great pleasure that they have been used so frequently ever since. The Palace embroiderers are very proud to have made this contribution to the Palace chapel.
