One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to walk through the older churches and cathedrals. This is the easiest when traveling in England because there are so many and they seem to be more readily open to visitors. One of the things that has stood out when walking through are beautifully stitched kneelers. At St Mary Magdalene in Woodstock there are over 200 kneelers! That is the most I’ve seen anywhere in my travels and visits to churches.
The brochure I picked up in the church about the kneelers was photographed so I could share the information easier for my record here. I was going to make collages of the kneelers that caught my eye but after reading about all the work involved in creating one of them it seemed to me they were worthy of being presented singly.
Here is the church tower kneeler, the Winston Churchill and one I think might be part of the Blenheim Connection
The following give honor to the Lord, the Bible and Prayer.
Then we move on to more community minded themes…
And from the state where Dear and I were born and raised. We were surprised when we spotted the California Kneeler.
That’s just a small sampling of the kneelers during our visit on Wednesday September 21st, 2022.
Do you enjoy needlework?
Back to the Present: On Sunday we enjoyed our Sunday services and made a stop on the way home to buy some Deli Salads to go with the 2 racks of ribs we put in the oven. The ribs were pre-seasoned from Costco and turned out fall off the bone delicious. We watched the first half of the Super Bowl game and then hit the record button. Since 2 racks of ribs are more than we could eat, we dropped a rack off at our Colville kids for their dinner before we headed to our Evening service at church. Back at home after church we watched the last 10 seconds of the game and saw that the Kansas Chiefs won. Congratulations to them. I’ve got to say that I really didn’t understand half of the commercials and we didn’t watch the half time show. We got a text with photos of our Grands enjoyed the ribs!
Ribs enjoyed in two households for the win!
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 
Hello,
Wow, love the collection of kneelers. Your grandchildren are enjoying the ribs, yum.
Take care, have a wonderful week!
Is that Winston Churchill??
I also like Watch and Pray.
Yes, that is Winston Churchill. He was born in Blenheim Palace which is located in Woodstock where this church is also located.
…so that’s what they are!
The ribs look delicious and your grands are so adorable eating them. Love the kneelers and I had never heard of the Book of Kells and had to google it. Love to learn something new this early in the day. š Hope you have a great day.
Cathy, It would be great to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College in Ireland, in the old library.
Sounds like a win to me (cook once, feed two households).
Those kneelers are wonderful! they certainly did let the artisan/craftswomen use their own ideas — quite a variety; and at least a couple totally unexpected in the context of where they are. Churchill probably did practically qualify as a Saint at one time (saving the country and all that kind of like a latter-day St George maybe?) but California? (I mean it’s great work and I love the State too but I’d really like to know why someone chose that theme???
Sallie, I was wondering the same thing. I wonder if someone moved to Woodstock from California…
The attention to detail on the kneelers are very special.
The kneelers are beautiful but honestly I’ve never seen one before!
Those kneelers are fantastic! Beautiful needlework. Thanks for sharing this Ellen. Those ribs and grandkids are the best win of all for sure!
The kneelers are wonderful! Such lovely needlework. I do enjoy embroidery and sewing, but not canvas work.
Glad the grands enjoyed the ribs. They sounded delicious.