Rochford District Heritage Tapestry

The Forum Southend-on-Sea is excited to welcome Rochford District Heritage Tapestry.

The tapestry has been created through a community project.

The main aim of the community project was to encourage groups and individuals from all 14 parishes within Rochford District to take part in creating hand-crafted ‘tapestry’ panels, depicting significant events and local history over the last 1,000 years. Each parish has its own story to tell and we made a conscious effort to bring out some aspect of each parish’s story at various points across the 10 Tapestry panels.

This has been a vast undertaking and the finished work measures over 10 metres long, in 10 separate panels. The scenes have been designed by local artists and historians, then interpreted by over 60 adults using a wide range of techniques, including embroidery, appliqué, knitting and felting. 80 local school children have also been involved in some of the felt work. So in the true sense of the word, this is not a ‘Tapestry’. However, it was the best word that we could find to quickly convey what we were doing.

The tapestry is free to view, with activity and colouring sheets, and the opportunity to buy the accompanying book.