Faith in the City - Medina

In celebration of a rare opportunity to watch an entire programme (Hidden Treasures of India, broadcast on Friday BBC2 at 9.00pm - check out iPlayer) devoted to textiles, this piece, mainly of Aari work is today's offering. In the programme it was suggested that this sort of work is no longer made commercially in Gujarat, but it's certainly still made in Mumbai.


Medina is the second most sacred city of Islam and it is located in the Hijaz Region of Saudi Arabia, 360 km north of Mecca. The Prophet Muhammad began his mission in Mecca in the year 609. After 13 years in Mecca he moved to Medina in order to escape the escalating hostility by the polytheists. The people of Medina welcomed him and presented him with land to build a house and a place of prayer, a mosque. After his death, he was buried in his house which was adjacent to the mosque. In subsequent years due to extension of the mosque his place of burial became enclosed in the mosque. The mosque is now know as 'Masjid-un-Nabi' or the Mosque of the Prophet.

Ayesha Dost took this picture of the Masjid-un-Nabi and other pieces to Mumbai, India, and a number of people embroidered them in traditional Indian stitches. Master craftsmen, whose families have been embroiderers for generations, teach young boys to embroider and this piece will have been done by several young lads at the same time, all working while seated in a circle.

Faith in the City - Trees

Machine embroidered trees supplied for the Faith panel by Margaret Kenny.

Faith in the City - Two congregations

Happy Yorkshire Day.


Several of the volunteers were called upon to provide crowd scenes and trees, at fairly short notice, when the panels were being stitched down and a gap needed filling. These two crowds were hand painted and hand stitched by Gill Cook for the Faith panel.

Community Spirit - Audrey Pigeon

A very satisfying conversation yesterday revealed the relationship between these two. Above is Nicholas, holding an orange at the Christingle Service and making an appearance on the Faith Panel. Below is his grandmother Audrey Pigeon, one of the volunteers at the Tapestry.

Sadly, Audrey died before the first 15 panels were put on display at Harewood, but her family were there to see the work, and to make sure her name was in the database. I presume Nicholas has left school now? A very funny lady who kept us in stitches (sorry) at the workshops and was very tolerant of the fads and fashions of 'the youth of today'.
Joan Holah embroidered Audrey on printed fabric and Audrey Gabbitas (nee Pigeon - no relation) embroidered Nicholas.

Faith in the City - The Silvermans

Even more of the Silverman family were included on the Faith Panel. Quite often there were not enough photographs of people for the crowd scenes on the panels and the volunteers would be asked to root through their photographs for suitable images.

A lot of the archive material has been put in a 'safe place' and I can't find the story Renee wrote about this particular photograph, but if she's reading this maybe a repeat can be written? Meanwhile I'll keep looking....

Renee Silverman embroidered these pieces of herself and her Mum and Dad.

Faith in the City - Mill Hill Chapel

The building is the only survivor in City Square from before 1893. It replaced the earlier chapel of 1674 where Joseph Priestley was the minister in the late eighteenth century. His statue, appropriately faces over City Square to the chapel and there are several memorials within which have survived from the earlier building of 1674.

Designed by Bowman and Crowther of Manchester between 1847 and 1848, it was apparently known at one time as the 'mayor's nest' when it provided four Dissenting mayors in five years.

When the new Mill Hill Chapel was opened it had a congregation of over 1,000. Many of the present congregation helped Margaret Cordell in sewing this piece in cross stitch.

Faith in the City - John and Joan Gamble

The embroidery is of John & Joan Gamble at their wedding in 1952. Joan is one of the volunteers at the Tapestry and wanted her husband, as a Mill Hill Chapel member on the Faith Panel. He was still alive when Kate talked to the congregation about the idea of the Tapestry and was very keen for the building to be on the panel. After he died Joan suggested he should be represented, initially by himself but as the photographer of the family very few images of him survive so Joan was pursuaded to join him.

John's family connection with Mill Hill can be traced back to before the present chapel was built in 1848. After their marriage they were both involved in the life of the chapel, founding the popular dance club and helping with the dramatic society. John held the post of Treasurer for Mill Hill for 42 years and, as the Minister remarked in his eulogy,

"John was rarely centre stage. He was seen to join me on the roof when slates fell or gutters bunged-up or to pop-in to talk or sometimes argue a point of difference. His great quality was that he was unassuming."

Joan was nervous about doing the embroidery and was assisted with her veil and John's suit by Janet Taylor.

Faith in the City - Leeds Parish Church

The parish church of Leeds by RD Chantrell for Dr Walter Farquhar Hook, who was vicar from 1837 until 1859. It replaced the medieval church at a cost of £30,000.

The exhibition for Woodbine Willie celebrates 100 years since his ordination as a priest there.

During a diocesan reorganisation in the late C19 the church was denied cathedral status, a fact that historically would have prevented Leeds from becoming a city but the link with Anglican dioceses was broken in 1889 when Birmingham successfully petitioned for city status on the grounds of its large population and history of good local government. So, instead, the church is affectionately known as Leeds Parish Church within the diocese of Ripon and Leeds.

When Pevsner wrote about the building in 1959 he was not enthused by the fact that the railway, in 1869, had cut the church off from the town 'so effectively that it seems to stand at a half-commercial, half-derelict dead end'. We may have all grumbled when the loop route was conceived and in place but at least it made the church more visible and seemingly more accessible to the people of Leeds.

The embroidery was hand painted to the design of James Brown and hand stitched by Joyce James.

Faith in the City - United Hebrew Congregation Synagogue

I haven't got to grips with the 'placing' of Easter in the secular calendar, I know its all to do with the phases of the moon and its the same calculation which gives the Jewish faith their Passover each year.

Passover this year is 30th March until 5th April. On the internet these dates vary, possibly because dating can be measured at sunset?

The first synagogue in Leeds opened in 1846 (on a site now covered by the Merrion Centre) but by 1900, as a result of the Russian pograms, there were so many Jewish immigrants in the city that there were about 12 in use.

Stanley Wright and Clay of Albion Street designed this Neo-Byzantine United Hebrew Congregation Synagogue on Chapeltown Road built in 1927. As the Jewish population moved north out of central Leeds new synagogues were built and this one became part of the Northern School of Dance, redesigned by Allen Tod Architects between 1995 and 1998.

Arnold Ziff sponsored this piece which was hand stitched on printed fabric by Pauline Clayden (20 hours). When the building was considered for the Faith panel it had already been altered into the Dance School and so, with the help of Rabbis Ian Morris and Solomon Brown and Eve Charing, Hebrew text, stained glass and hand rails were edited back into the picture using photoshop.

Faith in the City - Christian Aid Cross

Happy Easter to all.

I was trying to find an image from the Tapestry relevant to Easter Day and came across this one entitled The Christian Aid Cross.

Taken directly from their website-

"Christian Aid was founded by the churches of Britain and Ireland. Together, we work to fight poverty and injustice.

Inspired by the gospel message of hope, we unite people across the globe from all denominations and networks in prayer and service."

I've found no evidence of this cross on the website so don't know whether it was used at the Millennium or whether it was based on one of the gifts in the fund raising catalogue. Is it based on embroidery from Guatamala?

This piece of embroidery was hand stitched by Claire Wildman (hours not recorded).

Faith in the City - The Cathedral Church of St Anne

The old St Anne's was built as recently as 1838 but by 1900 it's location was in the way of Leeds development of a tram system. It was demolished to open up the junction of Cookridge Street with Park Row.

The foundation stone of the present Cathedral was laid on the Feast of St Anne, 26th July 1902. It was a collaborative work by architects John Henry Eastwood (1843-1913), a native of Leeds, and Sidney Kyffin Greenslade (1866-1955).

The religious buildings on the Faith panel were some of the largest projects of the tapestry. Lizzie Ingle and Lynne Ward completed the 'James Brown' cathedral in petit point in 50 hours and Barbara Gray spent 356 hours on the street level view in cross stitch.

Faith in the City - St John's Church

Two views of St John's Church, one at street level in needlepoint by Patricia Andrews (260 hours) and the other hand painted and stitched by Gill Cook (no hours recorded). James Brown, who makes the pictorial maps of Leeds, designed the aerial perspectives of the churches on the Faith Panel.

When John Harrison had this church built in 1631-4, entirely at his own expense, the Archbishop of York at first refused to consecrate it. He was one of the clergy who wanted to get back to the elaborate ceremonies of Roman Catholicism and suspected Harrison of puritanism.

Leeds Daily Photo Blog visited the interior last year. I'm ashamed to say I've not been inside the building which apparently includes work by the woodcarver Francis Gunby who was also involved in the contemporary remodelling of Temple Newsam House. Now on the to do list.

Faith in the City - St Paul's, Ireland Wood

St. Paul's is a relatively modern and distinctive church building. Built in 1965 it is eight-sided with a crowning cupula containing the bell and was designed by Geoffrey Davy of Kitson, Parish, Legard & Pyman. It stands just below the highest point of the City of Leeds.

Mary Mawson (7 March 1917-March 2004)
Mary worked on every panel except the last which was put together during the last 2 years of her life. She joined us in 1993 and almost immediately became a great enthusiast. She felt her ambition to go to Art School was met to a great extent by participating in the workshops, master classes and skill-sharing sessions which were part of the process of making the tapestry.
Always full of courage, creativity and initiative she was never phased by the challenge of a difficult piece of work. She was also tireless in spreading the word about the Tapestry and persuaded her former employer, Peacocks, to sponsor the Textile and Industrial Heritage panel. She also raised funds for Ireland Wood and Adel churches to appear on the Faith panel.
She was a very familiar face at the group sessions where we stitched the embroidered sections onto the backcloth - travelling first to the workshops at Kate's house, then to Armley Mills and finally to Holy Trinity Church on Boar Lane where the majority of the Panels were completed. Mary hand stitched this piece using long and short stitch with french knots.

Faith in the City - John Harrison (1579-1656)

The fourth Leeds worthy represented in City Square is John Harrison. He appears on the Faith Panel as a member of the Pious Uses Committee, set up in 1619 to administer local charities, some of which still benefit the people of Leeds today.

He was a cloth merchant and landlord who used the rents from his properties to help in building St John's Church and the second (?) Grammar School (on a site between North Street and The Grand Theatre), replacing the building at the top of Lady Lane.

A favorite story about him is that he cut holes in the doors and ceilings of his home to allow his cats free access around the house - is this one of the earliest records of cat-flaps? Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) has also been cited with this invention.

There is a John Harrison on the Local Faces panel, born near Wakefield in 1693. On the face of it he shouldn't be represented, but more of him later.

I'd completely forgotten that when we went to see the statue it was just after Jeans for Genes Day and we had to ask a workman to remove Mr Harrison's jeans before taking the photograph.

Janet Taylor hand and machine embroidered this piece on printed fabric.