| IT WAS seeing a pair of embroidered booties on the feet of a parishioner’s great-grandaughter that gave Jilly Jones, churchwarden of St Bartholomew’s, Llanover, in Monmouth diocese, the idea of an exhibition of christening gowns and memorabilia. It was planned for the weekend of their patronal festival, and some 40 long white robes were contributed, together with shawls, bonnets, and bootees. They were displayed all around the church, and hung on the pulpit and lectern and particularly around the font (above).
“The quality of the needlework was magnificent,” says the Revd Dr Stephen James, Priest-in-Charge, “and the social history associated with many of the gowns was fascinating.” Some were 19th-century. One had been sent in a Red Cross parcel from Sweden during the Second World War; and one was a gift from Boots the Chemist to a child baptised on the same day as Princess Anne’s daughter, Zara Phillips.
More than 200 people visited the exhibition, and the weekend ended with a Festival Songs of Praise.
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