On Sunday 9th November, a piece of art from Bradford Cathedral’s collection was featured on BBC1’s Antiques Roadshow. Find the episode on IPlayer and you’ll see our very own Director of Education and Visitors, Maggie Myers, chatting with one of the experts about our World War One “Khaki” Altar Frontal.
You can see some “behind the scenes” pictures here, including one of Mary White, a Bradford 2025 volunteer who was on duty at Cartwright Hall on the day of filming, who is also a member of our congregation. You might also notice Andy McCarthy, Bradford Cathedral Chief of Operations, lending a hand with the heavy lifting of the altar frontal!
The textile featured on the programme filmed at Cartwright Hall, Bradford, is an altar frontal designed by Louisa Pesel (1870-1947), a prominent Bradfordian who gained national and international recognition both for her embroidery and for her pioneering use of the teaching of embroidery as a form of occupational therapy to shell-shocked soldiers during the First World War.
The altar frontal, known colloquially as the “Khaki Altar Cloth”, is a wonderful example of the type of work that Louisa Pesel was engaged in with the soldiers from the Abram Peel Hospital as part of their rehabilitation, at the Khaki Handicrafts Club in Forster Square. The soldiers worked to her design in cross stitch on linen and under her supervision. The beautiful floral design is inspired by her time spent in Greece and the surrounding area and her study of Greek island patterns, themselves inspired by the colours and flowers of the natural landscape.
The altar frontal was made in the autumn of 1918, for the chapel at the Abram Peel Hospital in Bradford, a hospital for the treatment of soldiers suffering from shellshock and neurasthenia. It was given to Bradford Cathedral in 1920 after that hospital closed, and was used for many years in the Bolling Chapel of the Cathedral (pictured).
Maggie Myers, Director of Education and Visitors at Bradford Cathedral said, “For the last 8 years or so this delicate and important textile has been hanging in a frame in an area of the Cathedral not usually open to the general public. Whilst we want to protect and preserve it, we also want it to be enjoyed by visitors. Because we have a number of beautiful and interesting ecclesiastical textiles at Bradford Cathedral, we have begun to provide textiles’ tours, so that interested members of the public can discover and appreciate such wonderful and intricate work.
Apart from being loaned to Two Temple Place in London in 2020 for their “Unbound: Visionary Women Collecting Textiles” exhibition, this is the first time the “Khaki Altar Frontal” has been outside the Cathedral since 1920 and it looked absolutely stunning when it was unwrapped and seen in all its colourful glory on a magnificently sunny day at Cartwright Hall in June. Along with members of the public at the filming, I was also taken aback by the striking richness of the colours and the
intricacy of the stitches. I have seen it many times hanging on the wall in the Cathedral, but it looked absolutely magnificent in bright daylight and in the natural surroundings of the gardens of Cartwright Hall. It was a joy to see it there and for it to be enjoyed by so many people on the day and on “Antiques Roadshow”. We’re honoured and delighted that it was included.”
Anybody who would like to see the Khaki Altar Frontal and hear more about its story can take part in one of our future textiles’ tours, the first two of which are on Saturday 24 th January 2026. Book at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/bradford-cathedral-13158341111