Textiles from Bowood House, Wiltshire.

 This week I am listing on eBay a number of items that originated from Bowood House in Wiltshire. This is a magnificent English country house with beautiful gardens but surprisingly the view you see in the photo below is only what was known as the "Little House" as the original "Big House" was demolished in 1955

 This is a much older view showing the original "Big House" to the right of the picture.

I received an invite from a lady now in her 80's to view and buy a collection of linens and other textiles that  had been made over her lifetime. She was downsizing considerably and now felt it was time to part with them all. The hoard included Christening gowns, nightdresses, pillowcases and more. According to the seller some of the items had originated at Bowood House. Certainly some of the items do bear the laundry mark of "Bowood" and some have monograms and coronets that you would associate with the family from Bowood in the past. The listings this week from this collection include lace curtains....

and the most enormous linen and silk sheet that I have ever seen - 132" wide x 150" long (330cms x 375cms). This sheet has the laundry mark for Bowood and a hand embroidered monogram with coronet, dated 1844. As it is labelled "no 4" there were at least another 3 of these huge sheets originally!

And finally a masterpiece of hand embroidery and needlelace.

This is a fabulous hand embroidered bedspread - huge central monogram "K" with a coronet above and butterflies and foliage with hand worked needlelace inserts to the remainder of the bedspread. It does have some old repairs so was obviously much used and treasured by the family.