View of Worcester in the 18th Century complete with lots of incidental detail such as the man in the right hand corner, enjoying the view with his afternoon tea.
Volume 3 of Treadway Nash’s ‘Collections for the history of Worcestershire’, 1781-2. Photographs taken by Christine Penney.
This month’s woodcut from our 1611 copy of Spenser’s The Shepheard’s Calendar.
Nurturing Worcestershire’s Treasures is the name of the HLF funded Skills for the Future Programme that my Graduate Traineeship is a part of. We are five graduate trainees working across six different heritage sites in the Worcester area, and this traineeship aims to give us practical work experience in the heritage sector.
In Issue 2 there is a short article on the Archives Hub projects that I have been working on for both The Hurd Library and the University of Worcester Research Collections. The newsletter’s lead article includes some of the highlights from the traineeship so far.
You can also find out more about the work of the other four trainees who are also involved with the Skills for the Future programme in Worcester. The other trainees are based at Worcester Cathedral Library, George Marshall Medical Museum, Worcester Porcelain Museum and the Elgar Birthplace Museum.
I hope you enjoy learning more about the work I’m doing as well as the interesting work of my Skills for the Future colleagues.
To view the newsletter please click HERE or on the link above to take a look.
These are the further 6 chairs embroidered by Lady Julia Carew, which are on display in The Saloon, which complement the 10 chairs in The Hurd Library.
For more information on Lady Julia and her work at Hartlebury Castle, see the article below.
This month’s woodcut from Spenser’s The Shepheard’s Calendar depicts Spenser’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. By happy coincidence, today, April 21st, is the birthday of our own, Queen Elizabeth II.
As a lottery funded heritage trainee I have expected that I was the only connection the Library has had to the lottery. But whilst looking through a collection of miscellaneous letters and papers last week, I discovered this lottery ticket from 1792! The ticket was tucked inside a letter, but unfortunately there is no reference to the ticket in the letter. I wonder if Bishop Hurd’s luck was with him and he won some money?
Lady Julia Carew chair covers in The Hurd Library c. 1919.
See Lady Julia Carew in The Hurd Library.
Photographs by Sarah Stretton.
With nearly 5000 historic volumes filling the shelves of The Hurd library, it would be easy to assume that all of our treasures are leather bound and neatly stacked. However, we are discovering that many of the incidental items in the library have their own, often completely unexpected stories. So this month I will be sharing some of these discoveries on the blog. At the beginning of the month I began this feature with a picture tease of Bishop Hurd’s wig stand. This post is the main article of this series, discussing the discovery of the fascinating history behind the library’s unique collection of chairs.
Two of the chairs in The Hurd Library embroidered by Lady Julia Carew, c1919. Photographs by Sarah Stretton.
There is a collection of 8 chairs in the library and 6 chairs in The Saloon, which all feature oriental style embroideries. Until recently, very little was known about the chairs, their providence or history except that they were believed to have been embroidered by Lady Julia Carew towards the end of WWI. Armed with this scrap of information, Mary Arden-Davis, Vice-Chair of the Friends of Hartlebury Castle and The Hurd Library, attempted to uncover the history of these beautiful embroideries. Mary was put in contact with Dr Lynn Hulse, from the Royal Society of Needlework, and a leading expert on Lady Julia Carew. Dr Hulse was delighted to discover this hitherto unknown collection of Lady Julia’s work. She visited the castle and authenticated the chairs which are marked with Lady Julia’s signature and the date of 1919. It is not yet known if the embroideries were originally hangings that were altered to become chair covers.
Example of Lady Julia’s signature and date on a chair from the Library. Photograph by Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian.
So what makes these embroideries so significant? The answer is simple: the skill of their influential maker. Lady Julia Carew was the epitome of the accomplished society lady; she lived in Persia as a child, became the wife of the Baron Robert Carew and was a superb pianist. But her lasting legacies are the embroideries she created throughout her life, some of which remain with us today. In her own lifetime she was celebrated as “the best needle and tapestry-worker in Society…famed for her exquisite skill” (The Sketch, 1902).
Lady Julia Carew and an example of Lady Julia’s wall hangings featuring the “tree of life” motif. Images courtesy of Dr Lynn Hulse.
Lady Julia spent 5-7 hours embroidering daily. This was a time commitment necessary to stich all of her own wall hangings for her stately homes in Ireland and London. Lady Julia also believed that every bride should cross-stitch her own stair carpet! One can only imagine that she also believed in very lengthy engagements. She was taught to embroider at the Royal School of Needlework and shared their goal of returning ornamental embroidery to the forefront of the decorative arts. For many decades the focus of Lady Julia’s style was on emulating the sumptuous Jacobean embroideries that were created in the 17th century based on the “tree of life” motif. The majority of her work is in this style but the chairs we have at the castle are an exception. By 1919 she had begun to lose interest in this style and turned her attention to the oriental imagery that is featured on the chairs here at Hartlebury. Thus the chairs are a remarkable demonstration of the evolution of Lady Julia’s decorative style.
On March 3rd Dr Hulse held a one day workshop at Hartlebury Castle, called Lady Julia Carew (1863-1922) and the embroideries at Hartlebury in aid of the Hartlebury Castle Preservation Trust. On the day, Dr Hulse gave a fascinating lecture to 60 people where she spoke of her excitement at finding out about this additional collection of Lady Julia’s work at the castle. In the afternoon, she held a practical workshop based on the embroideries with her colleague designer Nicola Jarvis. The day was a great success and has received very positive feedback.
Dr Hulse has written that “Lady Carew’s lifelong passion and skill for the art [of embroidery] rank her as one of the most significant English needlewomen in history”. We are thrilled that the collection here at the Library and Castle plays such a significant part in the history of the British decorative arts.
Many thanks to Dr Lynn Hulse for photographs of Lady Julia, information on Lady Julia’s work and for bringing to light this wonderful element of the castle’s heritage.
Hulse, Lynn. ‘The best embroideress…in Society’: Lady Julia Carew and the Girton College Panels’
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Images of Lady Julia Carew’s embroideries were featured in the Treasures for National Day post last month.
Throughout February we featured a mini-series – The Life and Death of Henry Hubbard. Therefore this month’s book of the month is one given to Bishop Hurd by Hubbard in 1743. Hurd was a Fellow at Emmanuel at the time, and was just 23 years old, ten years after he was admitted to the college. The date of this gift is significant because it shows that Hurd and Hubbard had a lifelong friendship until Hubbard’s death in 1778. We also know that Hurd brought the book with him when he moved to the castle. Below is the original entry in the 1783 catalogue, which shows its original shelf location when the library was built.
Hurd wrote an inscription Latin in the inside of the book, which translates:
“The gift of the excellent man, Henry Hubbard. S.T.B. of Emmanuel College Cambridge”
The book is a concordance to the Greek New Testament, printed by Paulus Stephanus, a member of the famous Estienne family of Paris.
Woodcut from our 1611 copy of Spenser’s The Shepheard’s Calendar.
