By Jill Stocks
There’s a special gem on show when you visit Horsforth Museum. A unique piece of community art created by the community itself. One that tells a story of love for a community.
The Horsforth Walk of Art Quilt came about in 2023 when two local residents, and very talented needleworkers, came together with an idea for a work of art that represented everything that was important to the Horsforth community.
And now when you visit you can hear the stories of those who created it first hand with a brand new listening post telling us the stories of how and why they became involved and what Horsforth means to them.
Kezia Roberts told us more about how the project came about.
“Before we did the Walk of Art in 2023 I was lucky enough to get a job with Leeds 2023, City of Culture, and as part of that we chose the Walk of Art to showcase what we are in Horsforth. Which is amazing. Our volunteers got together and decided on a theme for that year and the lovely Kath Rolls came to me and said ‘do you know what I’d like to do? I’d like to do a quilt. I’d like to do a map of Horsforth.’
“At the same time I was also approached, pretty much to the day, by a lovely lady called Marianne who also pitched the same idea. So I put them two together and just allowed them to go and run with their own workshop with the community and the idea was very simple.
“It’s for people to create a little patch of the place that they find important to them in Horsforth. So you’ll see on the map when you come and visit at the museum there’s crazy things on there.
“There’s birds, there’s dogs, there’s houses, there’s streets, there’s vegetables, there’s places of worship, there’s so many different different places on there so it’s a wonderful representation of what people find important in Horsforth. Which is gorgeous.
“After Leeds 2023 we gifted it to the museum and they very kindly took it on. And then we had some money given to us, a little start up money, and that was from Horsforth Community Assets Project, to create a listening post.
“So we now have an official museum quality listening post to describe what the quilts about. And also you can hear the voices of the people who contributed to the map and finally, which I think is really cute, even though it’s my voice, there’s a little game as well you can play on it, so kids can come in and listen to it and play the spotting game as well.”
Kath Rolls told us about her involvement. She said: “I had an idea that I would do something similar to the Leeds one that’s been done already, and I was chatting to Kezia about it and Marianne was also interested so we got together. We went to her house and we got this massive white sheet and we drew all these streets on this sheet.
“So we got to that point and then we thought well we will get the people in the community to do the work as well so it’s not just about what we’re doing.
“We contacted all the churches – as many as we could – to do their own thing so you’ll see various churches on here, and we contacted the schools, and the local communities. Basically we just asked people to make something for it and you’ll see all sorts of different things on here; butterflies, trees, flowers, apples, knives and forks, a picnic basket. There’s so much on here you don’t know where to start to be honest.
“Marianne and I started doing the sewing and then we got other people to sew things on as well at various events around Horsforth. Marianne did all the finishing off. It’s amazing.”
The Marianne in question is Marianne Huntley, a Horsforth resident who runs a local upholstery and handmade homewares business, Form in Fabric.
“The Horsforth Community Textile Map was a Walk Of Art project, and a collaborative effort by myself and Kath Rolls. We sewed the basic road map of Horsforth on a large sheet and then invited the people of Horsforth to create local landmarks and features out of their choice of textile.
“We received beautiful submissions to populate our textile town with, from embroidered scenes of dog walkers and bluebells to knitted houses and crocheted red kites.
“The map is now hanging in the Horsforth museum, along with an audio description and quiz so people can look for local landmarks and features. There’s still space on the map for more textile items to be added, so if you’d like to contribute your favourite landmark, house or even dog to the Horsforth map, please get in touch through Horsforth Museum.”
The panels on the textile map were created using various techniques including tapestry, knitting, crochet, crossstitch and sewing, representing what the contributors love about the community and what it means to them.
Horsforth Shed is represented with a patch created by Carol Shaw, and Caroline Tomes created a number of patches; a beaver to represent the local Beavers and Scouts, dogs walking in Hall Park, the Horsforth Horse, and the refill symbol, all representing things she loves about Horsforth and all made sustainably using scraps from in the home.
Penny Pinn is involved in a number of projects in Horsforth including Horsforth In Bloom and Horsforth Climate Action and is a familiar face at the community cafe too.
Penny contributed 12 knitted panels using a photo or image to create a template for knitting, starting with a red kite before moving on to landmarks; St Margaret’s Parish Centre, the weir by Pollard Bridge, Featherbank school, the bandstand in Hall Park, the horse on a65 roundabout, the clock on Fink Hill, the cenotaph, the library, bluebell woods, the Old Kings Arms and the Queens Arms.
Daryl Kelly has lived in Horsforth for 43 years and is the branch leader of the Mothers Union at St Margaret’s Church and created her patch of the church using buttons to represent members of the congregation.
Some were inspired by simple images from Horsforth. Local resident Rhoda Wu created a patch of daffodils, to show how much she enjoys seeing the daffodils in Horsforth in Spring.
Claire Evans created a simple patch of a swing for the quilt, inspired by a thought from when her children were younger.
“I drew the swings from the playground. As a parent you first put your child in when they are really little and they giggle as they swing back and forth and then over time they progress from the baby swings to the big swings and then they learn to swing on their own.”
Nancy de Dombal, from Horsforth Museum, hopes the listening post will attract younger people to the museum.
“It’s such a colourful display that it will attract young people. I think it’s interesting because of the roads. You’ve got to work out where in Horsforth these clubs and groups exist and it takes a while but you realise that the grey areas are the roadways and you can pinpoint where you are and you can look and see which little group emblem is near where you live.”
The listening post, and the spotting game for kids, is the first interactive activity of this kind the museum has had.
“We’ve always offered in the school room lots of activities in there but we’ve never had anything like a microphone before. It’s a new innovation. It brings us up to date.
“But a museum isn’t about up to date, it’s about what has gone past, but you can incorporate the modern way to compare how things have changed.”
And at the end of the listening post Kezia poses a question: “what does Horsforth mean to you?” And looking at the quilt it’s clear it means so much to so many.