Quilts at The Workhouse

Over Easter we visited The Workhouse, a National Trust property in near to us Southwell. It was our first visit to our nearest National Trust property, and it turned out to be a hugely educational visit too. It was unlike other properties that we’d visited owned by the trust, and as you’d expect that was largely down to the original nature of the property.

I may share more about the property and its original use in a future post, and it’s a topic that deserves sharing, but for today I’m sharing some pictures and information about some of the quilts on display.

They too have a story, and are part of a community project highlighting the impact of domestic violence.

The information sheet alongside this first cushion quilt above says that ‘each square commemorates a women who was killed by a current or former partner’ and that there are two further quilts and cushion as part of this project.

That any quilt like this needs to exist is wrong, but it’s not the first commemorative quilt that I’ve seen either, sadly. Each square has been sewn with love and I’m sure fierce determination that these women won’t be forgotten, and the hope that no further quilts are needed.

I am questioning though if this would be more correctly categorised as gender based violence, which is also completely unacceptable. While I don’t know of each case represented in these quilts, I do have some knowledge of Sabina Nessa, who was murdered in Greenwich close to where we used to live. Sabina was killed by a man unknown to her, rather than a current or former partner, who is now serving a life sentence for her murder.

Thimble - a quilt with five hundred and ninety-eight women connected by a single thread

The Leighann Wightman quilt above is a tribute to her by her stepmother who wanted to use her time during lockdown to create a quilt as a tribute to women who lost their lives to domestic violence from 2016-2020.

The two cushions on display, made later, represent the women who lost their lives between 2020 and 2022.

The quilt below - The Women’s Quilt - pieces together five hundred and ninety-eight women each of whom were connected by a single thread. Every name is included, along with stars, birds, moons and hearts; their names are stitched in the colours of their eyes, the embroidered loops and waves in the hues of their hair. The poignancy in this detail was hard to miss.

THE LEIGHANN WIGHTMAN QUILT

All of the exhibits on show were humbling, and a sober reminder of the world we live in today, and as one of the exhibition boards said ‘the most beautiful project that shouldn’t exist’.

A Brace of Embraces

* I was invited to the press preview of Gardeners’ World Live and provided with a pair of tickets to visit the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

The Urban Gardens were a new feature at the 2024 show. They were both designed by Cherry Carmen but the gardens were brought to life by two teams of landscapers both vying to win the competition hosted by World Skills UK. Each garden was designed to embrace issues related to climate change - one focussed on Shady & Wet, and yeap you’ve guessed it, the other on Sunny & Dry. But which would win out?

Determined to have its own say, the weather wreaked havoc with both of the garden signs - the wind managed to rip the board from the wood for the Shady & Wet sign - ironic much? And both signs ended up laying down alongside its garden - you couldn’t make it up could you?

Shady & Wet

This garden was landscaped by Anna Mcloughlin and Ceri Furber and showcases a waterlogged or boggy garden. It’s a north-facing garden so doesn’t get the sun to dry it out, and so the planting demonstrates how to work with your garden’s reality and how by using correct techniques and plant choices you can still achieve something quite special.

I liked the planting in the Shady & Wet garden and I think that each of us can do more to work with what our garden gives us - just because we like a plant, it doesn’t mean it will thrive in the space we have - and we have to learn and respect that. In our previous garden we rarely had any bedding plants, save for a few around the patio, as there just wasn’t the light they needed given the large shrubs and trees we had. It’s something we came to accept, and obviously saved a lot of work trying to force things to work where they really weren’t happy.

Sunny & Dry

The landscapers for this garden were Aimee Copland and Jacob Mercer, and as you’d expect from its name this garden is south-facing and so becomes very hot in summer. Once again the planting and design has been adapted to work with, rather than fight against, the garden’s conditions.

This garden has a lot going for it and the plants appealed to both MOH and I. In fact this was MOH’s favourite garden in the show, which kind of surprised me and kind of didn’t. He likes strong sculptural plants - and has his eye on a banana plant, which while I’d be happy to have in the garden, so far I’ve resisted as I don’t think we’re quite ready to care for it, or have the supporting plants and infrastructure around it which I think it will need (but that’s a whole other post!)

I do think that there is something to learn from the dry gardens that we’ve seen, both here in this garden and previously at the show and in other gardens, such as the RHS Hyde Hall - and I think that is definitely something we’ll be incorporating into our future garden. I think more and more of us will do that too especially as the climate continues to change.

Oh, and I almost forgot - the Sunny & Dry garden was awarded a gold medal, so I guess that garden won, and I’m not disappointed by that.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was just as good as I expected! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to the show - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Post Comment Love 16 - 18 May

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

The warmer weather has been great, and don’t get me wrong, but boy isn’t it hot? As someone who’s body ‘runs warm’ most of the time I’ve been feeling it. It’s a consequence of my overactive thyroid but it seems to be more than normal in this warm spell, though thankfully none of the other signs of a misbehaving thyroid have appeared alongside it. I think I know why I’m feeling so warm, but it’s unlikely to be a proven scientific fact, so I’ll keep it to myself!

One thing I am enjoying though in this heat is iced coffees, which is odd as I’m not a big coffee drinker at all. It’s unusual for me to have one coffee a week, let alone a day usually - though this isn’t my theory on why I’m overheating, but I suspect there’s a link here too.

Anyway, I hope you’ve had some good weather too and have been able to enjoy it, coffee or not, hot or cold!