On the morning of Sunday 10th January 2016, the culmination of a year-long fundraising project at Ordsall Hall will be unveiled. Over the past twelve months, Ordsall Hall has been raising funds by offering supporters the chance to have a name embroidered onto a bedspread to be displayed on the Radclyffe Bed at Ordsall Hall.



All supporters have been invited to a ‘private view’ of the bedspread from 10am – 12pm this Sunday. It will be officially unveiled by the Deputy Ceremonial Mayor of Salford, Councillor Karen Garrido at this private event and it will then be on display to the public.

The quilt is the latest fundraising initiative from Salford Community Leisure, a community benefit society with charitable status. Salford Community Leisure is run by and for the people of Salford. It relies on donations of all sizes from trusts companies, community groups and individual members of the public to raise the £13million needed every year to support its work. Every penny raised goes towards keeping Salford’s leisure and cultural venues open for all to enjoy and ensuring the ongoing development of its outreach programmes.
Over 110 people and organisations have paid £10 to have a name embroidered onto the bedspread. It commemorates a range of people – from family members, Royalty, married couples, beloved pets and close friends. The quilt will be displayed on the Radclyffe Bed in the historic Star Chamber at the Hall. The Star Chamber dates from the 1360s and is one of the oldest rooms in Ordsall Hall.
The Radclyffe Bed dates from the 1570s and is the only piece of furniture at the Hall that is original to the building. It was removed from the Hall somewhere around the 1650s and it turned up at auction in London in the spring of 2014. It was bought by a businessman from the Lebanon who kindly agreed to loan the bed to the Hall for a minimum of five years.

 The bed was made as the wedding bed of Sir John Radclyffe and Lady Anne Ashawe who were married in 1572, they had six children and lived happily together for seventeen years before John’s death in 1590. The Radclyffe family built Ordsall Hall. John was born in 1536 and was a Knight of the Shire.
The Hall has worked in partnership with the North West Embroiderers’ Guild to complete the bedspread. All the names have been hand by members of North West Embroiderers’ Guild – from branches from all over the region – from as far as North Lonsdale in Cumbria to Glossop and Macclesfield. All the embroiderers have generously volunteered their time to help create this beautiful and lasting memento. The bedspread combines contemporary style embroidery with a patterned border that reflects the age of the building.

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