Duchess of Devonshire attends dedication of Women's Institute seat at NMA
23 June 2009
On Monday 22 June 2009, at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire attended the dedication of a stone seat built with funds donated by individual members of the Women's Institute (WI).
The Dowager Duchess was until the death of her husband the Patron of the National Dry Stone Walling Association, a role that has now been taken on by Prince Charles. She is a lifetime Honorary Member of the Derbyshire branch of the National Dry Stone Walling Association. She has a love of dry stone walling and has been involved in many projects on the estate and has always supported the branch and has always insisted they be represented at Chatsworth events demonstrating their craft/skill.
Her Grace has been a member of the WI since she was 14 and making it 75 years or membership this year. She has been proud to be a member and has always supported the DFWI, allowing events at Chatsworth and opened the HQ (Derbyshire House) in Derby. She thinks the WI do a wonderful job as an organisation and is very clued up on what is happening in the WI.
A team of Derbyshire WI members Susan Birch, Liz Neale and Judy Stanhope have overseen the project of building the seat, with support from the Arboretum and WI members. The site was given by the Arboretum and is between the River Tame and a wildflower meadow. The funds have been collected over a period of two years.
A Derbyshire waller, Sally Hodgson was chosen to build the seat (her mother is a WI member) and with help from her husband and her sister Jo, who walls on Baffin Island in Canada, the seat was completed in two weeks. The seat is in the shape of a lazy S about four feet high and can seat 10 or 12 people in each curve.
Longcliffe Quarries donated the stone for the seat and delivered it to site.
A gallery of photos from the event can be viewed on theveterans.co.uk website.
Contacts:
Susan Birch, Women's Institute, 01335 343869 or 01332 342596
Andrew Baud, Royal British Legion, 07775 715775
