Star object: Haddo House embroidered panel
Stitched: Scotland’s Embroidered Art is a new exhibition, held in Edinburgh this autumn/winter, that explores 200 years of household embroidery in Scotland. Looking at themes of display and decoration, inspirations and design, skills and collaborations, it takes a comprehensive view across the textile collection of the National Trust for Scotland, bringing new research and stories into the light.
A star object in the exhibition is an embroidered panel from Haddo House. It’s attributed to May Sandison, who was the daughter of an Aberdeenshire crofter and whose own mother, Mary, was also an incredible embroiderer. May was brought up at Stoumanhill Croft in the area between Fyvie Castle and Haddo House, and she later became Superintendent of the Methlick School of Needlework. This school was established in 1889 by the Countess of Aberdeen for ‘the training and employment of girls in the district who do not desire to go out into the world, but who want to earn some money at or near home’. Lady Aberdeen was a great supporter of traditional handcrafts; this was just one of several philanthropic ventures.
May’s mother had become known to the countess through working parties where farmers’ wives and daughters sewed for the destitute, drank tea and listened to readings of improving texts. Once her skill was recognised, she was commissioned to create embroidered textiles for Haddo House, the most unusual being a copy of an Italian table cover from the drawing room of Lady Aberdeen’s childhood home of Guisachan in Aberdeenshire. May was also involved in these commissions and worked with her mother to complete a bedcover begun in the 1740s by Anne Gordon, the 2nd Countess of Aberdeen. May also began to develop her own style.
In the end, the Methlick School of Needlework was short-lived, perhaps because it was not economically viable. However, in the five years it operated, the skills of the students were much praised, as was May’s artistic taste in embroidery and design. Pupils regularly exhibited their work, including screens, cushions, blotters, cosies and other useful articles, ornamented with what was described as ‘the greatest skill’. Such delicate work was not expected from the hands of rural working-class women. A reporter in the Banffshire Journal and General Advertiser commented at the 1894 Home Industries Exhibition that it was ‘a really marvellous display when one considers that the women who execute such dainty work are taken from the ranks of the peasantry’.
After the closure of the school, May remained close to Haddo House and continued to develop her embroidery style. Several pieces at Haddo House are attributed to her, depicting bold and stylised floral arrangements in shaded silk, often worked on satin and incorporating metal thread borders. Some may have been intended for sale at local charitable bazaars. This black satin panel is one of a set of four that have never been used but was possibly intended for a screen or screens.
To see this panel and over 80 other inspirational embroidered textiles, visit Stitched: Scotland’s Embroidered Art at Dovecot Studios, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh from 25 October 2024–15 January 2025.