Inherent Virtue: My Jane Austen Casket Project: More Needlepoint...Winchester...Steventon Rectory....

We stayed three nights in Winchester, the midpoint of the 2013 JASNA UK Tour, Linda and I finally hit the lottery because our room faced Winchester Cathedral, and we had a fan!!! The Cathedral is so huge it has a very surreal sort of haze about it. As discussed in an earlier post I was pleasantly surprised to find so much needlepoint covering kneelers and pews in the churches and the chapel at Stoneleigh Abby. Below are a few examples starting with pill shaped kneelers at Stoneleigh Abby's chapel.

The interior of Winchester is so huge that there are probably a dozen rather large areas of worship. One area with wood benches caught my eye. Each seat contained a cushion, there were probably eight rows on either side of an isle with ten to twelve seats per row. So a minimum of 150 seat cushions in all. Some patterns were repeats but usually the background pattern or color would change slightly. I can not imagine the time involved but lets estimate 30 hours each cushion times 150, get the picture?

Our first full day in Winchester started with a short orientation walk and then a drive to Steventon and St. Nicholas church where Jane was baptized and lived the early part of her life. We were greeted with ringing church bells and at least ten congregation members, I found it extremely touching to have so many people care so much to take time out to meet us, pass out gifts and bring refreshments. I'll admit it, I was sobbing I was so touched, there are few times in life when you can experience people honestly appreciating your traveling to see a place it is difficult to not become emotional. Below is a picture of the entrance, note the tree (unbelievably over 800 years old) to the left of the massive door, below is the key which opens the door. At one time the key was conveniently kept in a hole in the tree instead of under the mat...