Pillow Sham
1930s

This of course matches the bedcover. Both pieces are beautifully designed and embroidered and have an arts and crafts look. I am selling them separately.

Really lovely and useable with an Arts and Crafts look.  There is a label on the reverse of the bedcover: Made for Rosemary Kennedy Aspin, in the year 1930 by Nancy Gosling, Edith Freeman and Mary Swan, In Westerham, Kent.

Rosemary Kennedy Aspin (1917 - 2009) daughter of Walter Williamson Aspin and Mary Stewart Mitchell, both born in Glasgow. Rosemary was a member of the WRNS (Women's Royal Naval Service), one of eight Scottish ladies who worked at Bletchley Park, the top-secret establishment of the World War Two codebreakers.

In the Bletchley Park records it states: Wavendon House, 1942 - 1943; Stanmore 1943 - 1945. Bombe operator, in charge of a bay at Stanmore. She is commemorated on the CodeBreakers wall.*

Why the coverlet and sham were embroidered for her is a mystery. In 1930 Rosemary would have been 21.  Was it a 21st present from her parents?

After the war she must have trained as a physiotherapist and for 21 years she worked at the Royal Northern Infirmary, Inverness. From 1924 - 2009 Rosemary lived at Broomhill House, Dulnain Bridge, Grantown-on- Spey, Scotland, a house her parents bought for her. Dulnain Bridge is 45 miles; 72 kilometres from Inverness. 

Broomhill House is an imposing Arts and Crafts house, constructed of solid granite with ashlar dressings under a series of large stone slabbed roofs. The house was commissioned by the architects Balfour, Paul & Partners and constructed for Sir Alfred Booth of Liverpool, best known for his role as Chairman of the Cunard Line, and completed in 1918.

In 1924, the Aspin family purchased this residence exclusively for their 6-year-old daughter Rosemary, who was suffering from pneumonia, while the rest of the family continued to live in their lavish town house in Glasgow. Perhaps they felt the fresh air would be more beneficial to her health than Glasgow. In 1935 her parents moved to the house when they commissioned the highly acclaimed architect Sir Basil Spence to extend it, incorporating an awe-inspiring barrel-vaulted music room. The pristine air quality worked wonders and Rosemary spent 85 years calling this fine property home.

The bedcover and pillow sham would have looked just right in the house. The linen is of an excellent heavy quality and the workmanship, presumably by gifted amateur ladies, is excellent. The colours are well chosen, bright and attractive, as is the subject matter. I love the blue embroidered background. 

The linen is of an excellent heavy quality and the workmanship, presumably by amateur ladies, is excellent. The colours are well chosen, bright and attractive, as is the subject matter. I love the blue embroidered background.

Cataloguing

A central flowering plant with a variety of species, the four corners with similar but smaller sprays of flowers and foliage, all in worsted shades,  the background similarly worked to the coverlet with indigo cotton interlocking ovals and elongated S scrolls, the border with a double embroidered inset, natural linen ground. 23 1/2  x 31 1/2 in; 60 x 80 cm

Condition

Excellent condition.

Comments

* www.bletchleypark.org.uk/our-story/stanmore-outstation/

Price: on request