DEEP in rural Herefordshire lies a small, 13th-century church. Accessed by a quiet road and surrounded by fields, you would never guess that, for hundreds of years, it housed one of the most precious treasures of the Tudor age—an exquisite piece of embroidery, now believed to be the only known surviving fragment of Elizabeth I’s wardrobe.
For generations, the 16th-century fabric had been used as the altar cloth for St Faith’s Bacton. It had originated from Blanche Perry, a local noblewoman who had been a personal attendant and close confidant of Elizabeth I. Although Blanche was buried in Westminster, she had intended Bacton to be her final resting place and commissioned an effigy of herself kneeling beside her queen, which can still be seen today. It clearly shows a connection, via Blanche, between the monarch and this little church.
The parishioners who had carefully preserved their extraordinary altar cloth had long speculated about its origins. It’s easy to see why it was held in such high esteem by its keepers—exquisitely stitched birds, animals, insects and flowers twine their way across a background of precious metal, making it mesmerising to behold.
However, it wasn’t until 2015 that Eleri Lynn, the curator of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, happened across a photograph of this curious relic when she was researching Welsh connections to the Tudor Court.
Denne historien er fra September 25, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra September 25, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
