‘The village has never done anything like this!’ Incredible 12-metre poppy cascade created by Shropshire knitters to hang from church

Residents in Myddle, a village north of Shrewsbury so small it doesn’t even have its own local shop, spent 10 painstaking months knitting and crocheting thousands of poppies to create the cascade, which was this week finally hung from the village church.

The idea for the cascade came from the village’s knitting group, Twisted Stitches, whose member Jan Butler suggested the idea while the group was in the village pub, The Red Lion.

But little did they know just what a mammoth challenge it would be.

Louise Bullock, from the knitting group, said: “Jan, who often knits for local causes, suggested we knit this cascade as a follow-on to the decorated lychgate that we did last year. 

“Little did we know how big a task this would be. We estimated that we would need about 5,000 poppies, but this was such an underestimation and we created so many more.

“We don’t actually know the exact amount, but it was a lot more than 5,000 -  so we are having a guess-the-number-raffle once it comes down.”

She said it was not just the knitting and crochet group that were involved: local schoolchildren, passersby, and even the local fire service all got involved in the project. 

“It started with the knitting and crochet group, but we decided we wouldn't do any set style, so everyone who wanted to create and donate a poppy could. So some were crochet, some were knitted, and there’s different colours," said Louise.

“People near and far have helped to knit and crochet the poppies. We even had people donate them to a box in the church, one of which had a message to say it was in memory of her father, who died in the war.”

But, she said, creating the thousands of poppies was only part of the challenge.

“We then had to stitch them all together,” said Louise. “The children from Myddle Primary School each sewed poppies on. We also left it out by the roadside on a few days so the general public could sew a few poppies on, and when there was a garden party on, the guests had to stitch a poppy on or two.”

After 10 months knitting, crocheting, and sewing the poppies into a cascade, the creation was finally installed on the village church this week, thanks to Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Louise said: “The Twisted Stitches ladies paraded the cascade along the road on Wednesday evening and into the church on its final journey. 

“Then late on Wednesday night, a crew from Baschurch fire station kindly erected the cascade in the cover of darkness, so the village awoke on Thursday morning to a dramatic spectacle hanging from the church thanks to Rev Adam Clayton who supported us all.” 

“The locals have nicknamed it ‘The Halter-neck’,” added Louis. “I was so relieved when it finally went up. I could have hugged the firemen. It was such a wonderful feeling to see it there after all that work. 

"The village has never done anything like this before and we are very proud.”