Inspiring textiles at Castle Espie
Fully supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. With thanks to the National Lottery players this project allowed us to run courses teaching heritage yarn and textile skills culminating in a large textile art piece and 9 embroidered panels for the Castle Espie visitor centre.
The pieces pick up on unique aspects of the site, taking in the panoramic views and the fantastic array of flora and fauna that makes Castle Espie such a perfect place to spend time in nature. Thanks to National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund provided us with funding to run courses teaching heritage textile skills and to produce a large textile art piece and 9 embroidered panels for the Castle Espie visitor centre.
The pieces pick up on unique aspects of the site, taking in the panoramic views and the fantastic array of flora and fauna that makes Castle Espie such a perfect place to spend time in nature.
It all started with some Whooper Swans, in a field, in Newtownards…
Wondering what these amazing birds were and why they chose that particular field led us to contacting WWT Castle Espie, where we learnt about Whooper Swans and also that Castle Espie loves art and heritage as much as we do! It wasn’t long before it all became a fully formed idea for a large scale community art project.
The project finished when the artworks were installed in the Castle Espie Visitor Centre in July 2025. In total we worked with over 112 participants on the project with 10 volunteers helping us to hand embroider the final pieces you can see on display. The Visitor Centre and Cafe at Castle Espie are free admission and for more details on the rest of the site click here.
The Finished Pieces!
Across the Seasons by Åsa McDowell
Our groups met once a month at Castle Espie to get together for some crafting and chatting and we observed the changes of the seasons across the life of the project. Åsa then designed these four woven panels to represent the iconic view from the cafe window, with changing colours to represent each of the seasons. Each panel consists of carefully chosen wool and cotton yarns and took an average of nine days to complete per panel. Techniques involved included: rigid heddle loom weaving, crochet, hand stitching, yarn dyeing and spinning.