Journal

Inspiration: Arts and Crafts Bedcover, Kellie Castle, Fife

In 1877, on holiday in Fife, the Lorimer family was spending the long summer holidays in Fife.  On a walk they saw the dilapidated Kellie Castle, partially ruined with rooks nesting in the chimneys, and they were won over by its romance. At this time the children - James, Alice, Hannah, Robert, John and Louise were in their late teens and early twenties. 

Their father James Lorimer - Professor of Public Law at the University of Edinburgh - approached the Earl of Mar and Kellie with a proposal. If the Earl would make the castle wind and watertight, he would rent the castle on a 100 year improving lease at the rate of £25 a year.

The Lorimers then used the castle as their summer residence, something that was very usual in late C19th Scotland - Professor Lorimer had asthma and he found that the clean air of the Fife countryside alleviated it.   What was less usual was how this creative family transformed the interiors. Over the next decade the rooms were swept out and painted, old Scottish furniture was bought, and layers of carvings, textiles and murals were added.

Robert and Hannah learned how to create decorative plaster ceilings, they installed carved stone and wood detailing wood and Hannah and Louise, alongside their mother, worked on elaborate embroidered textiles.  

Everyone in the family was involved - this oil painting by John Henry Lorimer shows Mrs Lorimer and her daughters Hannah and Louise busy embroidering furnishings. A spinning wheel and wool winder are ready to be used, a timer is propped on the window casement, possibly allegorical, possibly practical where there are household things to attend to. 

Louise makes the most of the window light, stitching on a frame, Hannah drapes the bedspread she is working on around her.

In 1895, aged 40, Hannah Lorimer married the explorer and diplomat Sir Everard im Thurn. This painting by her brother is a marriage portrait of sorts and shows Hannah in evening dress still working on embroidering a bedspread, her husband perched at the other end of the sofa.

The bedcover that she is working on is similar to this one - which was on show at the Dovecot Studios last year. 

It was worked by her younger sister Louise, the last of the siblings to leave Kellie Castle.

I actually wonder if it is the same bedspread in the two paintings - started by Hannah and then passed onto Louise unfinished when Hannah married and moved abroad to take up her position as Governor’s wife. 

The bedcover is for a double bed and is worked in wool on linen.  This is the original sketch - the monogram was replaced with a pelican. 

The sketch was done by Robert Lorimer and it is clear that he knew that, to make it 7 feet six inches wide, a border would have to be added - this is emphasised in the finished work by using a slightly different fabric, though the motifs go over both in a way that is not on the design. 

Swirling flower strewed lines form hearts and contain spring flowers and butterflies.

The bullion knots at the centre of this flower show how technically skilled the embroiderer was.

The materials and stitching in the border is subtly different from that on the main panel.  I love that the olive green wool has run out and the tip of the leaf is worked in blue.

You can explore more historically inspired embroidery in the Stitched course.

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