“Oh, that looks like what I sewed”: students stitch Pugin's designs for the Cathedral
An embroiderer who keeps meeting people who never knew Nottingham had a cathedral has helped students from both universities stitch Pugin’s patterns in wool.
Embroiderer Mary Broddle has met people who have lived in Nottingham all their lives, some of them in their fifties, without knowing the city has a cathedral. She has spent the year telling them about “this architectural gem in the middle of Nottingham”, and getting students to stitch it.
She holds up a red square with a yellow cross, stitched in wool on a small piece of plastic canvas. It is her take on one of Pugin’s crosses, redrawn in blocks so that it fits on 27 holes. “When you take it down to 27 holes, you’ve got to make it a bit blockier,” she says.
The square is one of four designs Mary made for the Restoring Pugin Student Community Project. Restoring Pugin is the project bringing back Pugin’s painted decoration in the Cathedral. From the decorative paint schemes going back on the walls she drew a boss, a sun, a flower and a cross. Students from both of Nottingham’s universities have stitched them, and today the last squares are being finished, ready to be joined into one tapestry.
To an embroiderer, Pugin’s patterns are a gift. “It is right up our street. It’s got detail, it’s got colour, it’s got the repetition.” She orders Appletons wools, which she says William Morris used, and which are still made in Britain from Yorkshire wool.
Every square uses tent stitch, a single diagonal stitch across the canvas. Mary chose it because it is the stitch used on church kneelers to make them hard-wearing, and almost everyone recognises those, whatever their church.
At NTU, with help from the Cultural Officer, Mary spent an afternoon in the Newton building, by the coffee shop where students pass between classes. At the University of Nottingham she ran an evening in the wellbeing lounge with the student residential support team.
Evie, a student at NTU, heard about the workshops through the university’s arts programme. “It just felt like a fun thing to do in addition to my studies,” she says. She had never embroidered. “I hadn’t heard of Pugin before, and I’d never visited the Cathedral.”
Now she has done both. She found the work very mindful, and wants to keep going. “I think I would like to develop this skill and do it in some other projects.”
She is exactly who Mary hoped to reach. Evie’s advice to students who have never been inside is simple. “It’s nice to get out and explore the place and see what’s happening locally and around, and it’s very pretty, too.”
Not every square follows Mary’s charts exactly, and she is glad of it. “It’s the doing rather than it being professionally perfect that’s important.” She hopes students will come back, see the restored walls and think, “Oh, that looks like what I sewed.”
For Mary, Pugin’s colour is what will bring people through the door. “I think that the abundant decoration is just so much more enticing and welcoming than the plain walls.”
Her invitation to anyone who has never been in: “Come and see what the new decoration is, the new old decoration is. You’ll be amazed at how intricate it is.”
The Cathedral is open every day, 7am–7pm, on Derby Road in the city centre. Come in, walk east, look up, and see if you can spot the shapes Mary and the students stitched.
Restoring Pugin is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery players.
