Photo: Kendal Meeting House.
Quaker Tapestry Museum reopens
A team of volunteers from Kendal Meeting is to reopen the Museum to visitors on 6 May
The Quaker Tapestry Museum is to reopen in Kendal for one day a week this summer.
The museum closed in December due to financial difficulties, causing widespread dismay in the Quaker community.
Quaker Tapestry Ltd (QTL) and Quaker Tapestry Collections Trust have given Friends from Kendal Meeting permission to reopen the museum.
‘Many Friends will remember with sadness the closure of the Quaker Tapestry Museum in December,’ said Jenny Pearman, from Kendal Meeting. ‘The museum had shared Kendal Meeting House with local Quakers in a close working relationship for nearly thirty-two years. The collection remains in the Meeting house for the immediate future, while the Quaker Tapestry Ltd and Quaker Tapestry Collections Trust work on future plans for the collection.’
A team of volunteers from Kendal Meeting is to reopen the Museum to visitors on 6 May from 10am to 4pm, and for each Wednesday during the summer until the end of August. It is hoped that this may be extended.
Lucy Garnett, a member of Kendal Meeting and leading the volunteers, told the Friend: ‘Visitors are welcome to bring small textile handcrafts, such as embroidery, knitting and crochet, of their own to work on in the communal area in the Meeting house.’
The museum was the winner of the Cumbria Tourism Board’s Small Visitor Attraction of the Year 2025.
Jenny Pearman said: ‘The Quaker Tapestry is a celebration of over 300 years of Quaker insights and experiences, embroidered in narrative crewel work on seventy-seven panels of specially woven wool cloth. Visitors to the museum will be able [for free] to see over forty of these panels and marvel at the design, colour and detailed techniques used by over 4,000 people from fifteen countries, aged three to ninety-three, exploring the history of Quakers and their work in areas of peace, social reform, trade, industry, science and education.’
The reopening is welcomed by members of the Kendal Heritage Partnership and the local community, as well as Quakers in the area, she added.
