The Trustees of the Lace Guild
Under the Constitution, The Lace Guild CIO is managed by a Board of Trustees consisting of up to 12 members. At each AGM one-third of the charity trustees shall retire from office but they are eligible for re-appointment for a further term of three years and may serve for a maximum of three terms.
Christopher evans
Chairman
In 2012 I was studying for my undergraduate degree in Textile Design, when I started to notice that lace seemed to be having some sort of revival in fashion and interiors. While using the old Lace Guild website for a couple of weeks when I thought that I should probably send an email to thank the Guild for their useful website, when I realised that I had grown up a few streets away and never realised such a well equipped resource was on my doorstep the whole time. So I contacted and arranged to spend a couple of weeks researching at the Hollies with the enthusiastic support from the then Librarian, Rosemary
Green.
By the end of the 2 weeks I had enough research material to get me through a whole year’s worth of projects, reimagining lace in weaving, embroidery, knitwear and print. I had such an incredible time and was so grateful for all the help I received from the staff that I said if I ever returned to Stourbridge that I would certainly like to repay their kindness with some regular volunteer hours.
In 2016 after completing my masters in Ancient History with a special interest in Coptic textiles, I returned to Stourbridge. Once I knew that I was sticking around I reached out to the Lace Guild to see how I might help. Rosemary and most of the staff had moved on to retirement and greener pastures but I was put in touch with Denise Smith and found that my archives knowledge was of use to the 20 years backlog of archive material, that soon became my remit.
During my studies I had the luxury of working with a wide variety of different collections, such as the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Whitworth in Manchester and the Roman Baths, Bath. With a strong foundation in research practice, material culture and demonstrating craft knowledge to the public I
welcomed the new challenge that the Lace Guild Archive offered.
The more time that I spent with the amazing volunteers at the Guild, I realised that there was clear need for a younger modern perspective, so I offered my services to the Guild and joined the Executive committee in late 2017 to help with the development of our social media presence and in the AGM 2018 I was made Secretary of the Executive committee and now the Board of Trustees.
Throughout my time as a trustee, I have helped rearrange the Hollies to make it more visitor oriented and with the most incredible group of future forging people started to bring the Guild into the 21st century, so it may continue to serve lacemaking and its lacemakers, as well as preserving it for the future.
As a weaver (who primarily works with SEND young adults), with no real knowledge of lace, working with the fantastic collections at the Lace Guild I have learnt a hell of a lot from the passionate lacemakers that I have the pleasure of meeting. So last year I realised that I couldn’t learn any more about the craft without making some and bit the bullet and started making Bucks Point lace under the guiding hand of Jackie Poulter.
bryan obaji
Treasurer
Profile to be supplied.
Amanda Binns
I was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire and was only 3 when my grandmother taught me to crochet. I started my lace journey in 1982 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Since then, I ran the Chesham Young Lacemakers for 15 years. During this time they celebrated their 25th Anniversary and won a certificate for our Group Entry in the Chesham Arts Festival.
I am now a retired Medical Secretary and I have had the pleasure of working with Consultants and their trainee doctors from a variety of specialties. Since moving south to Hedge End, near Southampton in 2008, I have set up 2 adult classes, one of which has now been running for 16 years. Both are full and we enjoy a variety of extracurricular activities.
It was during lockdown that Ann, backed up by Gwynedd, suggested that I “really should consider joining the Trustees at The Lace Guild”.
My favourite bobbin laces are Beds & Bucks, but I also dabble in other bobbin laces as well as needle lace and embroidery and a tad of crochet. I occasionally attempt to design lace in Torchon and Bucks using Lace8. Each year I return to Chesham for their Lace Day with a few of my students and next year (2026) Hedge End Bobbin Lacemakers are holding their 1st Lace Day.
lizzie foulon
Second Hand Sales, Social Media and AGM
My fascination with lacemaking began at nine years old when I visited Allhallows Museum, Honiton. I watched a lacemaker making one of fifty ‘turkey tails,’ to edge her wedding veil. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my parents couldn’t drag me away! At home the local library had a couple of rather dusty and unintelligible Victorian books that got me no further than the basic stitches. I waited for five years until I was deemed old enough to be given the headmaster’s permission to attend lacemaking night school classes. I turned up and let Marjorie Carter know that I had come to learn Honiton lace. You won’t be surprised to hear what I was told, that I might be good enough in five years time, when I had done at least a year or two each of Torchon, Bedfordshire and Bucks Point laces; I was
crestfallen, having already waited five years to start classes! I got on well and after a year was making Bedfordshire and started on Bucks Point, I’ve barely deviated from making Bucks since.
As happens with many of us, ‘life,’ in the form of education, work, family, and changes in location put lacemaking on hold for me for almost twenty years. I returned to my pillow amazed at what I could remember, but also at the gaps in my memory, and I made some pretty poor lace on the path back. I armed myself with Alex Stillwell’s books on Bucks Point not long before covid restrictions began, given how things then went in the world that was excellent timing!
I re-joined the Lace Guild and made an appointment to study the Bucks Point prickings in the collection, design and research being amongst my favourite things to do. While there I met Denise (our former chair) and a very, very large pile of donations, the look of despair on her face had me volunteering to help and rolling my sleeves up to sort through the donations. I’d retired from my role in Scouting at the start of covid, so I was ready for a new project. My small-business background has proved very useful and I enjoy working with the other trustees and meeting fellow lacemakers. It
would be fair to say that I haven’t looked back!
Alison Hopper-Bishop
Archive, Long-term Planning
I first became interested in lace almost 50 years ago when a relative gave me 2 hankies edged with beautiful handmade lace, which I discovered was called Bedfordshire and Beds Maltese. I spent my early teens collecting and learning whatever I could about antique lace, eventually finding someone to show me the basic stitches in the early 1980s. Though keenly interested in lace and lacemaking, I had to pack away the pillow for almost 40 years to juggle family with a full-time career as a museum conservator. I retired last year from my role as Operational and Conservation Services Lead at the award-winning Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, and now work as a Museum Conservation Consultant, but I am trying to find a little more time to devote to other interests!
I returned to lacemaking a little over 4 years ago. I’m keen to use my knowledge of the museum sector to help the Lace Guild modernise and thrive in the 21st century. I want to help make sure that the knowledge and traditional skills of the craft survive and are seen as relevant and important to attract another generation of lacemakers.
I have an especial interest in the associated craft of the bobbin turner, which had such a renaissance in the 1980s, 90s and 2000s. Information about the 20th Century bobbin turners is disappearing so I’m working on a project with the Lace Guild Archive to identify and catalogue a reference collection of the 20th and 21st Century makers. I hope to find ways of using the archive work to keep these skills alive. After all, when did you last meet a lacemaker who didn’t need another bobbin?
Emily Lonsdale
I have been a member of the Lace Guild for about 7 years. Learning to make lace has been one of the delights of my life. I love learning new skills and I focused the dissertation for my MA on the effect of the industrial revolution on the handmade industry in the East Midlands. I am so grateful for the help I received from the Guild with my studies and with connecting me with other lacemakers and lace teachers which is why I joined the Board of Trustees.
Margaret Templey
In the 1990s I was interested in dolls houses and making things to go in them, so when Roz Snowden published “Miniature Bobbin Lace” I began teaching myself Torchon from books. I also was privileged to be able to go on some workshops with Roz. Then in the mid ‘00s life got busy and I didn’t touch lace, or the dolls houses, for about a decade. In 2017 I went to a local dolls house exhibition. The Miniature Needlework Society were there, demonstrating bobbin lace, and a local lace teacher, Bobbie Long, had a display of her work. When I got home, I took out the pillow with a part finished piece of lace on it and discovered I couldn’t remember what to do. So I started going to Bobbie’s classes and became absorbed in learning different types of (full size) lace. In addition to Bucks and Beds, I have dabbled with Honiton, Idrija and Milanese. My first piece of Binche is in progress and I started my first piece of Withof recently. The phrase “Jack of all trades and master of none” springs to mind!
I still haven’t done anything more to the dolls houses!
I live in Princes Risborough, Bucks, and belong to several local lace groups. I teach at a weekly beginners group run by Risboro’ Lacemakers and I volunteer at Amersham Museum, demonstrating at their monthly “Lacemakers at the Museum” sessions.
I joined the Lace Guild in 2019. I retired in 2020 (I have a degree in Chemistry and my most recent job was identifying foreign material found in food). I became a Museum volunteer in 2022 and a member of the Museum & Archives Committee in 2023. I was co-opted onto the Board of Trustees in July 2025, as representative for the Museum & Archives Committee.