Volunteers from Arden DFAS take part in the King’s Norton Restoration project
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Arden DFAS Heritage Volunteers have for the past 12 months been working on costumes for the Historic King’s Norton Restoration project.
This project was the winner of the BBC Restoration title in 2004. They planned to restore an ancient building, the Saracen’s Head, so that it became fit to become a local community amenity, and also to restore the Old School Room so that it could welcome visitors from modern school children, and introduce them to schooling as it used to be. It was with this latter project that Arden DFAS became deeply involved. After an initial training day in November 2007, patterns were discussed, created and altered; suitable materials were sourced and purchased…then work began. We started in early Spring, 2008. Sewing was usually done at the homes of the Volunteer team, but there was frequent and regular consultation with the King’s Norton team on site as they were asking for a large variety of costumes, and for large numbers of some designs. Heritage Volunteers were asked to work to a dateline of 1570 and were challenged on many different handicraft skills; a knitting pattern for a statute cap to fit a boy had to be worked out from scratch; outfits for both rich and poor adults and children were devised and completed with great success; but perhaps the greatest satisfaction came with the making up of costumes for visiting school parties….the skirts, pinners and coifs which were sewn really helped present day children to get the feel of times past. Our only problem was that school parties today usually contain over 30 children, so sufficient costumes had to be offered; such parties always bring at least 2 or 3 adults with them, and appropriate outfits for these grown-ups had also to be available. The project was completed in October 2008 and proved hugely enjoyable for the Heritage Volunteers as well as being thoroughly satisfying to everybody concerned. (The photographs show Arden Heritage Volunteers standing in front of a few of their creations and some outfits being worn by school children visiting the Old School Room at Historic King’s Norton in October 2008) |
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