London landmarks in lace

 

This machine-made, lace panel of Westminster Abbey in London is one of a series and I have another one depicting Trafalgar Square. Many of these fairly small lace panels (they are 30 x 45 cm) were made from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s and I’ve seen others of famous UK landmarks such as Edinburgh Castle and Nottingham Castle. The two I have are made of a synthetic thread so are definitely fairly modern in construction. As you can see in the detail below, they are very cleverly shaded by using a limited range of stitches and the square format of this type of lace lends itself well to depicting architecture.

I don’t know how many different landmarks were part of this London series. I have seen lace panels of Buckingham Palace and St Paul’s Cathedral but they did not have the same border as my two examples so I don’t think that they are part of this series. A search on the internet does not reveal much and concentrates on the images of London shown in the Battle of Britain commemorative lace panel, which I know very well having researched it and written about it many times. However, the images on the commemorative panel are not views of London landmarks, but mainly images of bomb-damaged London buildings. I bought my panels online but I assume they were originally sold as souvenirs for tourists and that is why I think they must be part of a wider series of London landmarks in lace.