Sometime in the 1580s, Ralph Sheldon, a wealthy Warwickshire landowner and gentleman, commissioned a set of four tapestry maps to hang in his newly built house at Weston, near Long Compton in south Warwickshire. The maps depicted the counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and were made to hang together in one large space, creating a dramatic and colourful panorama of the English Midlands stretching from London to the Bristol Channel.
The maps were probably woven at the Sheldon tapestry workshop which had been set up by Ralph’s father, William Sheldon, at Barcheston near Shipston-on-Stour. The Warwickshire tapestry is the only complete surviving map from the series, its border was added in the 17th century and it measures 5.1m x 3.9m, and is woven mainly in wool, with silk used to highlight key areas.
It is a rare and wonderful pictorial representation of Elizabethan Warwickshire!
Why is the tapestry important?
The tapestry is of major importance for cartographic history, providing a rare view of Warwickshire when modern map-making was in its infancy. It shows how Warwickshire looked 400 years ago, and how it has changed over time – for example, the tapestry shows trees covering much of north and west Warwickshire, with the woodland broken by deer parks enclosed by fences. This was the Forest of Arden, inspiration for many of the forest landscapes in Shakespeare’s plays, but now largely disappeared.
Elizabethan Coventry appears as a medieval city with walls and spires, much of which vanished through bombing and redevelopment in the 20th century. It is also important as an example of English tapestry weaving, at a time when most tapestries were imported from the Low Countries.
Warwickshire as Shakespeare knew it
The tapestry shows Warwickshire as William Shakespeare knew it, and you can explore Elizabethan towns on the map. Some towns you will recognise, some are there, but the names are different. Some towns you would expect to see on a 21st century map are not on the 16th century one!
Comments
Anyone wanting to know more about this tapestry and the Sheldon tapestries in general should look at Hilary Turner’s writings:
TURNER, Hilary L., No Mean Prospect: Ralph Sheldon’s Tapestry Maps. The Plotwood Press, 2010. 60pp. Illus. and ‘“This work thus wrought with curious hand and rare invented arte”: the Warwickshire Sheldon tapestry map’, Warwickshire History, Vol. XII, No. 1, Summer 2002, pp. 32-44. Illus.
I love this tapestry it always amazes me the wonderful needlework that would have been sewn by natural day light and candlelight and the hours of dedication ,to create such a masterpiece
Dr Hilary Turner’s book has some fascinating detail on how this and the other Tapestry maps were made. When the Warwickshire Tapestry was cleaned and conserved in 2011/2012, we had the opportunity to discover more about 16th century weaving techniques and the subsequent history of this Tapestry. More details to be added to ‘Our Warwickshire’ soon.
Intrigued to read that the map records a land-slip incident in 1590’s. A Robert Morden map of Herefordshire records a slow- motion landslip in 1575 which took 3 days to move 20 acres of land leaving a gap 100m x 100 m in the countryside. Accompanied by great rumblings and shakings + “fright and astonishment” to the villagers it moved a chapel, sheep and trees in the process. Probably less than 20 miles away from Tewkesbury.
The landslip is featured on the Worcestershire Sheldon Tapestry Map. This has also recently been cleaned and conserved and is now on display at the Weston Library (part of the Bodleian Library) in Oxford. Interestingly, the Worcestershire map still has the original, very ornate border, which was removed from the Warwickshire one in the 17th century, but we found traces of it during the recent conservation work.
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