Skip to content

Plea for 10,000 knitted poppies for church cascade

Christopher Mace
BBC News, West of England
Ben Prater
BBC Radio Wiltshire
BBC Church tower with short stone spire on top. The tower has a dark blue clock face with gold hands and numbers. An artist has altered the image to show a cascade of poppies draped from the top of the tower, down to the ground and the war memorial below.BBC
An artist's impression of what the display would look like

An appeal to make 10,000 crocheted poppies - so they can be cascaded down the outside of a church tower to mark 80 years since the end of World War II - has begun.

The Peacock Women's Institute (WI) in Corsham, Wiltshire, is asking members of the community to get involved to help them hit their target before the end of August.

The poppies will then form a display at St Bartholomew's Church in Corsham, Wiltshire.

Margaret Winskill, from the Peacock WI, told BBC Radio Wiltshire the group already had "huge engagement" on the project from the community.

Margaret Winskill Four different crocheted poppies. One is circular with frills. One is circular without frills or undulation. The third is large and a similar shape to the poppies people can buy from the Legion, with indentation between the two large petals. The fourth is similar to the third, but much smaller, with a pronounced indentation. All have black middles, like the seeds on a poppy.Margaret Winskill
The WI is using several knitting patterns of varying complexity for the cascade

She added: "St Bartholomew's Church has lots of people knitting. The town council has been supportive and we're engaged with lots of groups including the food bank, the Guides, Brownies and Cubs.

"We collected 400 poppies at our craft group on Tuesday and we estimate we're already up to around 700 - and those are just the ones we know about."

She said: "The final display will cascade down the tower of the church and, at the base of the tower, there's a First World War memorial, and we want it to come either side of that.

"That'll tie in with the reason we have poppies - to reflect and to give thanks to those who lost their lives for our freedom."

The Peacock WI will also open a pop-up shop in the Martingate Centre in Corsham.

"People can drop in and we'll give them a quick [knitting] lesson," added Ms Winskill.

"We have several patterns and one of them is just knitting, so no complex stitching and it's really simple."

Follow BBC Wiltshire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.

More on this story
Related internet links