Honiton Lace

Illustration: Honiton lace sprig design.

The hand lace making industry of East Devon was traditionally said to have started with the influx of Flemish refugees in the sixteenth century, although certain forms of embroidery and cut work in particular which is often seen as the forerunner to the lace craft, were produced before this time. Although analogies with earlier designs produced in East Devon do correspond to lace work produced in Belgium, it is difficult to be fully accurate. The nature of the lace industry was one of often borrowing and adapting patterns from different areas and incorporating them into native or domestic styles, which makes it difficult to pinpoint indigenous styles and geographically localised areas of production.

Illustration: Honiton lace poppy and bryony design. 

One thing that is certain is that East Devon produced fine lace work that was created in numerous villages in the East Devon area for a number of generations. The reason that it is often given the general title of Honiton, rather than the specific village of production, is the fact that Honiton being the main town in the area was where the finished lace was brought together for shipment via stagecoach and then later by train to London in particular.

There is a definite style to Honiton lace, which commonly used floral work that was often motif based and could consist of relatively large gestures. The flower motif would be worked separately and then integrated into a piece of lace work via the background netting. Motifs were often strung together through the netting background and could therefore be used, depending on the scale, for anything from the edging of a tablecloth to that of a small handkerchief. This intriguing design work may appear more robust perhaps than some of the finer examples from different areas of Europe; however, the work does tie in with the ongoing English use of a relatively unstylised form of nature, which was so much a part of the general pattern style of the culture.

Illustration: Honiton lace open fibre.

Some of the work produced during the early to mid-nineteenth century copied some of the floral wallpapers that were so popular at the time. This could help to explain some of the larger examples of floral motifs, although by all accounts many were less than successful as judged by critics and the lace makers themselves. There is a certain similarity with English embroidery work, particularly of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. This may well be either a coincidence or perhaps an example of designers from different genres tapping into the same font of initial inspiration, the vocabulary of English design work perhaps.

Either way Honiton lace despite its inevitable European links was altogether a domestically inspired craft that produced work that was both admired and copied outside of the geographical area of East Devon. So much so that to some extent at least Honiton is sometimes referred to as a style rather than a geographical moniker. Making the scene even more complex is the fact that Honiton lace makers, like so many others in Europe, also produced work in other European styles, as the fashion demanded, so that lace work could appear as both the fashionable lace style of the day and yet still be classed as Honiton.

Illustration: Honiton lace poppy and bryony design.

Honiton lace, like so many other hand lace producing areas of Europe, is no longer a viable industry. The twentieth century was particularly unkind to the craft, when fashion, for both costume and interior, minimalised its use of external fringes and borders. Because the industry was literally at the mercy of the dictates of fashion it found it near impossible to either diversify or adapt. The Royal family have felt compelled through most of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, to commission lace work, be it on a fairly small scale, from the various traditional lace centres of Britain and Ireland. Queen Victoria was a fairly substantial commissioner of lace work, and Honiton lace was incorporated into the wedding dress of Princess Diana.

Honiton still sells locally produced lace today, although mostly of an antique nature, and honitonlace.com is a good place to either buy or explore this uniquely English lace craft, as well as find tools to experience the craft yourself.

Illustration: Honiton lace spray illustrating Flemish and fibre stitch.

Reference links:
The Dictionary of Needlework
Identification of Lace (Shire Library)
Honiton Lace Patterns
The Honiton Lace Book
1862 HONITON LACE FLOUNCE DEBENHAM EXHBITION LONDON
Introduction to Honiton Lace
Royal Honiton Lace
New Patterns in Honiton Lace
The Technique of Honiton Lace
**REPRINT** Cole, Alan S. (Alan Summerly), 1846-1934. Honiton lace industry copy of report of Mr. Alan Cole, Commissioner from the South Kensington Museum, on the present condition and prospects of the Honiton lace industry. Ordered by the House of Commons to be**REPRINT**
The History of the Honiton Lace Industry (South-West Studies)
Birds and Animals in Honiton Lace
Three Generations in the Honiton Lace Trade: A Family History
Flowers in Honiton Lace
Antique Point and Honiton Lace
Further Steps in Honiton Lace
Honiton lace: Basic technical instruction book
Honiton Fillings: A Collection from 18c. Honiton Lace
A Honiton Lace Maker: The Pat Perryman Story

What’s up Doc?

Are you interested in finding up to date information on health and medicine?

Whether you require background information from dictionaries and other reference books, articles from newspapers or magazines, or research papers from peer reviewed scientific journals, Health Reference Centre Academic could help you.

This online database is available remotely to Wellcome Library card holders as well as within the Wellcome Library. It draws from a wide array of information resources many of which are available in full text.

Searches can be limited to just full text resources or the latest published research by limiting to peer reviewed journals. Results are displayed with separate tabs for different types of media including academic journals, magazines and multi-media. It is also possible to browse by subject and publication title. The advance search option also allows keyword and other searches within the chosen publication subject, and additionally searching by document type.

Those interested in the communication and portrayal of science and medicine in the popular media will find Health Reference Centre Academic useful too. It also provides online access to the full text of several hundred journals.

As with any source of medical information it is important to assess its quality. Discern has produced guidelines to help do this.

Image: A patient consulting his friendly doctor. Pen drawing by J. Ulrich (Wellcome Library no. 12131i).

Author: Simon Warburton

Just an observation? Review - Duchy Gallery, Glasgow

Review by Alistair Q

As you come off High Street and enter the beginnings of the bedraggled East End, across from a noisy new construction site and in the midst of a row of hollowed out skeletal shop fronts you could be forgiven for the surprise at finding the large boisterous works of Michael White hidden amongst the churning hub of renewal taking place outside the small Duchy gallery in Glasgow.

Inside, White’s large totemic plaster work looms over the viewer, perched atop a large black stage, its presence squeezing the onlooker as it dominates the white washed space. Within the show are three disgruntled ambiguous works made up from a technique of layered and slapped-on plaster and paint over polystyrene, with fingerprints carved into their surface in an Arnulf Rainer-esque struggle with the medium. White has employed an almost alchemical technique in his approach to the pieces, working fabric dye and acrylics into the plaster which changes and moves as the work begins to dry: such being a theme of the work in that weeks later the two main pieces, Colossal Head and Grendel have changed in hue and dark veins begin to appear within the plaster itself from shifts in the pigment. Within it you can see various forms splash in and out of the mass; caves, faces, mouths and mountains piled up like uncertain cairns. They truly embody some kind of primordial clay as a theme, yet to be sculpted, or goals yet to be founded.

When speaking to the artist his investigations seem to go deeper into the role of sculpture as a classical and state supported practise but also investigating its former overruling ideologies. His research into anthropology and post-colonial contexts is mixed in with his contemporary interests in the seemingly endless mass consumption of inane information that influences our globalised lives. A strong point within this is that with the history of imperial monuments being cemented in the ideology of progression and power it’s a strong parallel when faced with today’s conflicted feelings of muddled direction, aim and goals, which sits well with the amorphous beings on display, not quite sure of what they are or what they want to be.

From this angle it can seem as if the work itself is a culprit to this lost ideology, in that they signify little towards a goal or path for this or the next generation, it is only in looking into the titling of the work that the viewer gains a little in reaction to a decade of confused objectives. Colossal Head for example slowly creates a commentary; being titled after a museum artefact, it reiterates the questions of object, ritual and meaning through its mute existence as an item of worship or utility. In writings on ancient communities, the head had no distinct function and so remains a mystery as to its use and relevance to the culture in question. The concept plays through in my mind as to what connections, if discovered hundreds of years from now, could archaeologists pull together in relation to our times and the works at hand? Michael himself states that his work is “just an observation” and that it is a reaction to the prevailing mood of the times, stressing the idea of an overall age of uncertain meaning.

The name, So Miami, helps cement and contextualise the works in our current culture, centring the show in parody to other contemporary artworks and artists. The artist describes the title as a pun on the care-less-ness of some of the amoral art of the past decade, particularly with the British talent of the 90s and noughties (which, as the title for a decade and on the theme of the work, is an abbreviation worthy of comment). The use of So Miami as a title is effective in grounding the work in mockery of our current British culture, with its reactionary scornful repulsive forms, splattered in functionless colours, strangely placing it in a seemingly pivotal moment for our generation.

With these ugly forms in mind the uncertain and ambiguous imagery of the work can be seen as a burden and a blessing: does it refuse to comment with certainty on the possibility of a banal future since it’s only past experience has been that of an unenlightening osmosis, as White aptly calls it, of celebrity gossip and advertising. Is it not just like other British art with it’s no comment attitude? Or does it truly embody a feeling of movement, shape-shifting and change, of the possibilities for a generation to gather a voice in reaction to the ocean of ideologies?

Before leaving the space, a local in the area, chapped on the door and began to tell us what he thought of the show, since he had been past a couple of times and said this was the first time he’d really been drawn in. “There’s quite a lot of things it could be, you know? I can see a face, a mouth, a man…”. With this in mind maybe the role of the work may not be to comment or preach as to what should be done, but rather to inspire our imagination to make changes that we ourselves can see through.

The next show to open at The Duchy will be Samuel Nias, presented by ARCANMELLOR, A prism applied to the eye glass of my reflector. For further details please visit The Duchy Gallery

Pointing the Finger

Be careful when pointing the finger.

A lesson for me after a day of technology problems.

Another week will follow of considering changing to Mac from PC. If only it weren't so expensive a decision.

Bette Runs The Show

A Stolen Life (recently out from Warner archives) was the first Bette Davis melodrama revisited in maybe a year, so I'd forgotten how compelling best of her stuff could be. Did any star make a worse mistake leaving her/his place of employment? Cagney when he split Warners, perhaps. Errol Flynn too, for that matter. Davis minus WB machinery won't float for me. Much of what's good about A Stolen Life is so because they'd perfected the brand and knew what pleased. Bette's great, but I want Warner wrappings with her. Take those away and you're left with Payment On Demand, The Star, or (worse) Another Man's Poison. I've said before how crucial Max Steiner's music is to a Bette Davis experience. She realized and acknowledged as much in talks with historians. Pics from leaving WB onward were one-woman shows on what seemed a bare stage (All About Eve an obvious exception). Davis was aging and that too accelerated decline. I remember reading somewhere of Cagney admitting (if grudgingly) Warners' efficiency with sets they'd built for his comeback-to-the-fold Angels With Dirty Faces, this after JC's Grand National defection and vehicles to demonstrate that even dynamos like Jim couldn't bake cakes without flour.

The record's replete as to Davis being difficult, rolling over directorial authority toward her way and dispatching theirs to highways. A Stolen Life's helmer Curtis Bernhardt lived long enough to get his version of events on the record. Bette took that dispatch and answered back, but firm. It was a he-said, she-said thirty years past anyone but late show mavens caring, but illustrates vividly how pride is a final faculty to go. Davis was a great interview resource for having a memory like elephants, not forgetting detail down to costumes and even poster art Warners bungled on shows dating to ingénue years. Somebody or other had good ideas for A Stolen Life, its New England setting off-usual recipe for Davis, but congenial to backgrounds she favored when not working (Yankee-land being BD's natural habitat). Having her play twins is a device I'm surprised wasn't consulted long before 1946. It would be again, far more nastily, twenty years hence in Dead Ringer, otherwise an effort to do things an old-fashioned way. I'll bet crowds gasped when Stolen Life's BD # 1 lit BD # 2's cigarette ... effects this convincing were possible at majors with their $ and technical expertise ... where or who else could pull it off? Bette might (should) have consulted that reality before stomping off Beyond The Forest a few years later and saying goodbye to support essential for putting over her kind of star vehicle.

A Stolen Life was special for being produced, at least on paper, by Bette Davis (A B.D. Production, reads credits). Biographers suggest it was a tax dodge, A-list salaries going mostly to gov'ment coffers at the time, necessitating devices like hers and fellow WB'er Errol Flynn, who'd recently whipped up Thomson Productions to avert onerous duties to his adopted Uncle Sam. Davis, however, seized the label at face value to ramp up creative input already a prerogative on shows she headlined. Script revision was this time done in front of shooting rather than as outcome of fierce on-set argument, and despite her claiming later to have had no more producer control than a man on the moon, I'd like thinking A Stolen Life reflects BD's how-to for a vehicle finally rendered her way. If in fact she labored beyond producer in name only, then regret is A Stolen Life being one-off it was, for Davis in charge of her own unit might have kept stardom's lamp burning for at least a few more Warner seasons.

BD and columnists she spoke with usually got round to her pet peeve of censors bowdlerizing scripts and product emerging from said weakened tea. It was worse after the war when audiences began nixing movie romance shorn of reality. A Stolen Life's set-up amounts to this: Bette loves Glenn Ford and it looks like he's on board, until saucy twin (also BD) lures him to the altar. Sailing mishap that follows leaves twin dead and means of Bette assuming her identity and place in the marital bed ... a socko construct you could remake today ... but in 1946? No way could you pay off on tantalizing possibilities here, Davis knowing A Stolen Life's strongest meat would be deemed unsafe for Code consumption. Letdown and compromise was part/parcel of moviegoing experience then. Patrons learned to translate dissolves, a tie loosened where it was not in a previous scene --- whatever got across offscreen coupling that Junior wouldn't detect. Bette Davis films got closest inspection because they dealt with events leading to sex, even if it was cancelled-on-arrival. Censor-mandated necessity in A Stolen Life is keeping faux-wife Bette out of conjugal harm's way with unknowing Glenn Ford, denying us consummation the whole improbable business has led up to. As Jerry Colonna used to say, I can dream, can't I?, and indeed, mere suggestion and imagination taking it from there might have been enough to satisfy fans who knew from experience what they couldn't see in this or any other Bette Davis show.

Trouble was teeth baring in noirish mellers Joan Crawford was now generating at Warners. Mildred Pierce preceded A Stolen Life and showed what a woman's picture with guts looked like. Maybe I should say gats, for Crawford packing heat in designer handbags lured male patronage till now indifferent to love travails among stardom's sorority. Murder as a feminine pursuit widened appeal of Crawford and free-lancing Barbara Stanwyck. Bette Davis as twins or no was hard put competing with that, A Stolen Life's best ever BD-profit attributable more to record year 1946 than increasing interest in her (the next, Deception, initiated a boxoffice falling off). Crawford at WB would run out of steam too, but not so soon as Davis, and the former's embrace of woman-in-peril themes for a 50's spike put JC ahead of BD during seasons wherein both worked hardest at staying relevant. Pitting them against one another in Baby Jane's mansion of horrors was natural outcome to all this and must have been long-awaited satisfaction for customers longing to see gloves finally off both Davis and Crawford.

Snowshoe Adventures...Tramping Through the Woods

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

~Henry David Thoreau

By now you are more than likely tired of seeing my snowshoe photos but since the season is full of opportunities to hike out there in the snowy goodness, I will continue to share some of the best shots and stories from our wanderings.

This trip was a sisters trip and my big sis and I spent part of our weekend out in the sunshine hiking/wandering, taking photos, talking, sharing aches and pains, and nourishing our love of beautiful landscapes. We heard Steller's jays and nuthatches as we "tramped" through the woods.The creek sounds were always in the background and every now and then the quack of a mallard was heard over the crunching of our shoes.

This particular place is known for being a bear and eagle habitat. Although I have seen bears here in the summer and fall, I have never seen an actual bear or signs of bear in the winter. There are plenty of other animal tracks around but never any bear tracks. My sister was still a little uneasy but we did not see a bear on this trip, thank goodness, or she would have never let me forget about it.

There has been no fresh snow in awhile but there were places where we really did need the snowshoes. The weather was warm and I ended up just with a fleece jacket, no gloves, and my light knit hat. My sister was trying out a new set of snowshoes which were much smaller and lighter than mine. She said they were very easy to get used to and we felt good about being out for a long walk....not totally by ourselves in the woods but still alone enough to feel peaceful and refreshed.


We wandered through the woods and only once did we need to take our snowshoes off and jump across the creek. Yes, I said jump.  I didn't feel very graceful as I made the leap across into the snowbank but there was no one else around to see me....

The aspens make such a visual treat with their beautiful trunks.



Yes, the limbs of the bare bushes are that pinky-red in real life. Amazing color along the creek for a winter scene. I was so surprised that my point and shoot was able to capture the exact look of this winter creek.


Does it get any better than this? With a little effort my sister and I made it out to the end of the creek where it spills into the lake. The snow had all melted on this side of the water and we took off our snowshoes and stood in awe of the mountains, the snow, the reflections, the sky, the peacefulness of this place. I felt like I was in some beautiful outdoor cathedral and I sent my thanks to our Grand Creator for the gift of this afternoon.



There is my sister taking some photos of her own. We share a love for the outdoors and photography and she is an amazing nature photographer. All too soon we realized the day was coming to a close and we needed to make the hike back to the car. We were tired but it was a good kind of tired.

I hope to get up to the snow at least one more time, probably with my boys if we can fit in the time.

I am not the only one that has snowshoes.  Don't miss reading another mom's experience with her snowshoes...it will warm your heart: Pink Snowshoes by Richelle at Educating Mother.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Men at Work #31

Painting the yellow lines on the road. Actually its not so much painting as moulding a resin to the road. Very hot and noisy work.

Newton, Jones and Willis Embroidery Work

Illustration: Newton, Jones and Willis. Embroidered section of an Archbishop's cape, 1851.

The largely ecclesiastical suppliers Newton, Jones and Willis exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. This Birmingham based company was by no means the only ecclesiastically based company at the Exhibition. While in today's world it may appear to be somewhat of a niche market, in the mid-nineteenth century companies like Newton, Jones and Willis were much more mainstream and supplied a healthy ecclesiastical market, with a number of companies also branching out into the then fashionable and gothically inspired domestic interior market.

Newton, Jones and Willis supplied work in a number of disciplines including metalwork, stained glass and textiles. Textiles have always formed a substantial element in church furnishings and ceremonies whether they be altar cloths, hangings or costumes. Embroidery has long dominated the genre and English ecclesiastical history has a long connection with embroidery both professional and amateur that goes back to the pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon period. Although the Church of England after the Reformation toned down the number of ceremonies and furnishings in the mid-sixteenth century, by the time of Catholic emancipation in 1829 and the subsequent Catholic church building projects that followed, the Church of England had become much more ornamental and decorative in its furnishings and ceremonies. Although the re-emergence of the Catholic Church in England was by no means a catalyst for nineteenth century decoration and ornamentation within the Church of England, it could well have been a factor at least within ecclesiastical textiles.

By the mid nineteenth century, companies such as Newton, Jones and Willis were able to supply a decoratively extensive range of ceremonial costumes and furnishings for ecclesiastical use. Both illustrations shown here were hand embroidered examples using silk and gold thread. The first illustration shows an orphrey or heavily embroidered area of an Archbishop's cape. This was specifically designed for the Church of England, other denominations having their own costumes and accessories. The second illustration shows a portion of an Altar Cloth, also for the Church of England. Both are highly stylised though well within the parameters of the fashionable gothic revival and lend a certain amount to the decorative and design work of A W N Pugin for example.

Illustration: Newton, Jones and Willis. Embroidered Altar Cloth, 1851.

The company used a number of designers and architects work throughout their history, which went well into the twentieth century. They were known to have used design work supplied by E. W. Godwin, G. E. Street, F. E. Howard and William Burges. Although based in Birmingham, the company eventually had workshops in both London and Liverpool, as well as Birmingham. They also had an all important flagship showroom in London where some of their best ecclesiastical fair was on show. However, much of their merchandise was sold through their numerous and regularly updated catalogues, as well as through wide scaling advertising through various ecclesiastical circles, whether that be national or localised.

The 1851 Great Exhibition was not the only international venue for Newton, Jones and Willis; they also appeared at the 1862 exhibition also held in London, as well as the 1873 exhibition in Vienna and the 1878 exhibition in Paris. Many companies found these venues, although expensive, often worth the fee as both domestic and foreign orders could be gained through the exhibition of prestigious decorative work. Although the examples were often not for sale, but had been produced as a guide showing either the flexibility or more usually the stature and standing of the company, these examples were often of such extraordinary skill, many having been painstakingly hand produced. They were in fact often textile art pieces in their own right and were supreme examples of handcraft production of the nineteenth century. Where most of these 'show' examples are now, if any indeed survive, would make for an interesting project.

Reference links:
Ecclesiastical Embroidery (Batsford Embroidery Paperback)
Butterick Art & Ecclesiastical Embroidery c.1898 (Metropolitan Handy Series)
Ideas for Church Embroidery.
Embroidery in the Church
Clothed in Majesty: European Ecclesiastical Textiles from the Detroit Institute of Arts
Traditional Icelandic embroidery
Ancient Russian Ecclesiastical Embroideries
Needlecraft Practical Journal #85 c.1910 - Ecclesiastical Embroidery
English Ecclesiastical Embroideries of the XIII to XVI Centuries with 33 Illustrations [Victoria & Albert Museum Catalogues]
Book of Byzantine-Ukrainian Ecclesiastical Embroidery
New Ecclesiastical Embroidery
Stitches for God: The Story of Washington Cathedral Needlepoint
Parament Patterns: Counted Cross-Stitch for Altar, Lectern, and Pulpit Hangings
Ecclesiastical sewing guild, St. Luke's student wives
High Fashion in the Church
Church needlework ;: A manual of practical instruction
The work-table magazine of church and decorative needlework, embroidery, tambour, crochet, knitting, netting, etc