Quaker tapestry

13 August 2011Feature

The idea began at the Friends Meeting House in Taunton in 1981. 11-year-old Jonathan Stocks felt the room where they held the children’s meeting needed cheering up. Anne was a professional embroiderer who had recently studied the Bayeux Tapestry. She had a vision of a Quaker embroidery - a series of panels each illustrating one event or idea from Quaker history. Each panel would be made (researched, designed and embroidered) by a different Meeting or group, but she would oversee the design…

13 August 2011Feature

A new exhibition documents the Quaker struggle for peace

From the first, the Quakers have taken a clear stand for peace and against military action. In 1660, soon after the movement’s founding, Margaret Fell, the Mother of Quakerism, gave her testimony: “We are a people that follow after those things that make of Peace, Love and Unity.”

The Quaker Tapestry, displayed in the Quaker Tapestry Exhibition Centre, tells the history of Quakerism. A new exhibition, Weapons of the Spirit, has been created in a small space within the main exhibition…

3 July 2009Comment

The idea began at the Friends Meeting House in Taunton in 1981. 11-year-old Jonathan Stocks felt that the room where they held the children’s meeting needed cheering up. He discussed it with their teacher, Anne Wynn-Wilson. They needed pictures. Why not a history of Quakerism in collage or mosaic? Or embroidery?

Anne was a professional embroiderer. She had recently completed a study of the Bayeux Tapestry, which is not really a tapestry but a 70-metre-long strip of linen embroidered…