On the Move - The Butty

By the time the full scale cartoon of the panel was put together there were several small sections of embroidery which didn't quite fit in with the overall look. Most of them fitted well with the Textile & Industrial Heritage but the butty above is still waiting for a serendipity panel.

A butty is a second boat pulled by the narrow boat, it has no engine but does need to be manned, to operate the rudder. Apparently they were introduced as late as the twentieth century when engines replaced horses as the source of power.

This particular butty, Ash, is possibly the one towed by Oak and operated as a hotel by Reed Boats.

Pauline Clayden hand stitched the piece on printed fabric.

On the Move - Burton's Van

When the panels were first on display, at Harewood and then at the Royal Armouries, there was a rota of volunteers willing to steward the Tapestry and talk to visitors about the pieces. Some of the anecdotes from this time were recorded and Brian Jackson was particularly good about this.


"My attention was drawn to an elderly gentleman who was looking at the Transport panel. He appeared to be having some difficulty with his glasses. I could see that he was particularly interested in Burtons and when asked he replied "it used to be my firm", by which I understood him to mean that he had been employed by the company.
I informed him that there was another Burton's item on the Textile panel and offered to show it to him. With some difficulty, he was walking with two sticks, we went to the panel where I pointed out the montage including Montague Burton, the man. Again with some difficulty he adjusted his glassed and looked very closely at the piece. Then to my utter astonishment he turned to me and said "that is my father".
I then had a long conversation with him and at my request he signed the visitors book, Raymond Burton."

(written by Brian Jackson 3/11/03)

There are still volunteers willing to provide guided tours at the Tapestry's permanent home in the Central Library in Leeds. Please contact me if you would like to bring a group to see the panels. Any of the volunteers reading this? Remember that a group still meet in the Tiled Hall on the last Friday of each month, the more the merrier.

Barbara Gray embroidered the piece on printed fabric (6 hours).

On the Move - cyclist

I've found another cyclist on the Transport Panel. Is he smiling for the cameras, or because he's not stressed sitting in his car in traffic queues or because he's cycling downhill on his way from work?

There's another image of a cycle path just below him on this panel, and there's a website dedicated to the cyclists of Leeds.


Both were hand stitched by Joan Holah on printed fabric.

On the Move - Leeds Coat of Arms

Another magnificent rendition of Leeds Coat of Arms, this one hand stitched by Beryl Smith in 40 hours.

21st April entry describes the history of the Leeds Coat of Arms so I'm linking this one to "Flock Together", bird inspired Exhibitions and Events across the Leeds Museums Service. One of the most interesting exhibits at Temple Newsam has been borrowed from a library in Scotland. It is a priceless Audubon "Birds of America", volume 1 published in the early C19.

Lady Hertford had a copy of this book but it didn't last long. In 1829 she cut out some of the birds to add extra life to her Chinese wallpaper. For the duration of the exhibition at Temple Newsam (28th May - 30th November) the normally roped off Chinese Room has been opened up to give closer access to spotting these American birds in the Chinese landscape.

Flock there and wing your way to the bullion room - particularly this month when the open page of Audubon reveals magnificent Great Horned Owls.

On the Move - Bicycle

Another sort of bike altogether.

"The Transport Panel was almost complete, it lay horizontally on the trestles. Kate and Brian were laying out the completed pieces on the canvas, endeavouring to obtain balance whilst putting them in approximate date order. Brian drew Kate's attention to the fact that there was no bicycle and offered to sponsor the missing item as his family's contribution. The result can now be seen right in the centre of the panel, a shop delivery cycle with a large basket at the front.

Brian rode such a bike as a teenager, delivering shoe repairs for the family business. In 1936 his father, Harry Jackson, set up in business as a shoe repairer at 220 Harrogate Road. The lock-up shop was built on the site of the yard of the former Queen Hotel.
Brian's wife Merel and sister, Marian Mouncey worked the frame and wheels while Brian completed the basket."

(notes from Brian Jackson 3/11/03)

On the Move - GNER Train

Just back from a train trip to London to see the Quilt show at the V & A and Mrs Delaney's Exhibition at Sir John Soanes. You see the link?

There are several train engines on the Transport panel and this is the GNER representative. Great North Eastern Railway was a train company owned by Sea Containers Ltd which operated high speed express trains on the Eastern coast main line rail from 1996 to 2007. The dark blue with red trimming was a reference to the GER livery, the pre-nationalisation company who ran the service.

This is possibly a Class 91 but if anyone knows more?

Jan Brown hand stitched this on printed fabric in 40 hours

On the Move - Cossin's Map 1730

'A New & Exact PLAN of the Town of LEEDES' by John Cossins published in 1730.

In 1993 Sothebys offered for sale a notebook written by John Cossins. It contained notes on his maps of Scarborough, York and Leeds and also a list of the people who subscribed to those maps. This was bought by the City Archivist for York. Originally 138 people subscribed in Leeds to 192 copies; only one copy is now accessible, in Leeds City Museum. It has been suggested that Thoresby was instrumental in hiring Cossins, and a copy of the map is kept at the Thoresby Society.

I don't think any of the houses shown in the margins are still standing, or any of the buildings on the map. St Peter's was rebuilt in 1838. BUT is the White Cloth Hall on the map the same building which is currently shored up with scaffolding in Kirkgate?

Joan Holah spent 100 hours hand stitching on this printed fabric. It's fabulous.

On the Move - Rack and Pinion Loco

One of the few pieces on the Tapestry which we have detailed information about.

"This is the world's first commercially successful steam locomotive, which began work on Wednesday 24th June 1812 on the waggonway between Middleton Colliery and Leeds.
Four of these locomotives were built for the colliery owner Charles John Brandling, by the famous engineer Matthew Murray, at his Round Foundry in Water Lane, Holbeck.
They incorporated a cogged wheel which gripped on to a cogged rail, an invention patented by John Blenkinsop, Mr. Brandling's manager at Middleton. This system enabled the locomotive, which weighed less than 5 tons, to heave along about 30 waggons of coal, sometimes weighing over 100 tons in total, without breaking the brittle cast-iron rails then in use. A man named George Stephenson saw an identical locomotive start work near Newcastle in 1813: his own first locomotive copied most of it, but omitted the cogged wheel and, therefore, was not nearly as strong as the Leeds locomotives.
Between 1812 and 1835, people from France, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Austria, Russia, and the U.S.A. are known to have seen the Leeds locomotives at work and later tried to interest their own countrymen in the building of steam railways.
The Hunslet area adjoining the railway was later at the centre of Leeds' important locomotive-building industry.
The Middleton Railway has other claims to fame: in 1758, its route agreements were ratified by the first railway Act of Parliament and,
over two hundred years later, in June 1960, it became the first standard-gauge railway with services operated entirely by volunteer preservationists.
Steam trains still run on the historic Middleton Railway, maintained and operated by the volunteers of the Middleton Railway Trust Museum."

Information supplied by Sheila Bye (Historian/Archivist, Middleton Railway Trust Museum)

The piece was hand stitched by Lesley Dove

On the Move - the Transport Panel

The panel was made between 1995 and 2000 and was first exhibited at the Civic Hall during a reunion event of the Leeds Swordfish Appeal.

At that time the Tapestry workshop was at Holy Trinity Church and Kate and Betty thought it would save time and money to carry the panel through the streets of Leeds rather than hiring transport. Someone took a photograph of this and it appears on the Community Spirit Panel.

The background is made up of maps of Leeds illustrating it's growth from hamlet to town to city. Overlaying these are the various modes of transport including road, rail, water and air.

On the Move - 1939 Vauxhall Car

On 26th March 1934 the Driving Test was introduced in the United Kingdom.

Today's offering is a 1939 Vauxhall car in celebration of this event (OK, tenuous link)

I have many more questions than facts today. Whose car is this? Where is it and is it still being used?

It appears with a Vauxhall Calibra on the Transport (On the Move) panel and both were sponsored by Barr Wallace Arnold.

Were those driving already issued with licenses without having to pass a test?

The printed fabric was hand stitched by Janet Carding.