Historical information

This is a machine made length of lace which has been executed in the Cluny style. Cluny lace is a bobbin style lace which is worked in a continuous piece and is heavily plaited in geometric designs. It is believed to have originated from copies of designs in the Musee de Cluny in Paris.

There is a company in Ilkeston in the United Kingdom called The Cluny Lace Company which is still making both Cluny and Valenciennes lace using Leavers machines. The Mason family started making lace in the 1760s at the start of the Industrial Revolution. For two centuries the five generations of the family have paid close attention to detail and have brought the company to the forefront of new technology. Many of the lace patterns still used today were designed and draughted by Frank Maltby Mason and Francis Bowler Mason, the sixth and seventh generations of the family. They have developed a data bank of designs over this time and by combining the best of old traditions with new technology the firm is able to produce a wide range of exquisite designs of Leavers Cluny style lace allovers, edgings and insertions. This lovely insertion would be well suited to decorate a mob cap or on bed linen and nightwear.

Significance

Churchill Island has a large lace collection, which was added to by three successive generations of the Amess family - Jane, Janet, and Unity. The Amess family owned Churchill Island from 1872 to 1929. Jane was wife of Samuel Amess, who was the first Samuel Amess to own Churchill Island. The examples of lace are notable for their variety, and provide respresentative examples of techniques from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries.

Physical description

Length of machine made Cluny-style lace trim with repeating diamond pattern on the border, and a central geometric/floral motif