Higham Ferrers Tourism, Business and Community Partnership

HIGHEST HONOUR FOR HIGHAM FERRERS

TOURISM COMMITTEE HAILED “A GREAT ROLE MODEL”

Higham Ferrers Tourism has scooped a coveted award on behalf of the local community.

Members of the town’s Tourism committee who took home Northamptonshire Heritage Forum’s coveted “Heritage Organisation of the Year Award” have been praised for acting as effective leaders for their community. The judges felt their “team spirit of cooperation was a great role model.”

The Heritage Organisation of the Year Award was the highest honour announced at the Heritage Forum’s recent awards ceremony at Wicksteed Park and Higham Ferrers Tourism faced stiff competition from other entrants.

“I am really quite proud of what we have achieved over the years as we are trying to promote Higham Ferrers as an interesting visitor destination,” said Liz Barnatt, Chair of Higham Ferrers Tourism, at the committee’s monthly meeting a few days later.

Higham Ferrers Tourism also won the Hindsight Award for the Best Published Work: the same award that they won two years ago.

This time, their entry was a film made by Higham Ferrers Junior School children, showcasing their top 10 favourite places in the historic town. The film was downloaded onto YouTube to ensure the pupils show off the town to everyone.

“The pupils were really being trained as tour guides, the idea being that they would know so much about Higham Ferrers that they will be able to pass on their knowledge to their parents and friends,” explained Carol Fitzgerald, Chair of the Chichele College Management Committee, a sub-committee of Higham Ferrers Tourism, who supervised the project.

Two interpretation boards detailing the school-goers Top 10 favourite places, along with a map of where they can be found, have gone up in the school playground and at the nearby historic Chichele College.

The cost of the film was jointly sponsored by All Souls College, Oxford – founded by Higham’s most famous son, Archbishop Henry Chichele – and the Higham Ferrers Town Council.

The Tourism Committee works alongside all community groups in Higham Ferrers including the Gateway Club, the Social Prescription Group, the Friends of St Mary’s and the Higham Ferrers Archaeology and Research Society (HiFARS).

The awards ceremony is held every two years, and the Tourism Committee entered a total of five categories. While four went to other organisations, Higham Ferrers Tourism’s name was mentioned throughout the night as being shortlisted for the various honours.

The ceremony finally culminated in the announcement of the top award, with the decision said to be a reflection of all the time and energy Higham Ferrers Tourism had invested in keeping the heritage of the town alive.

“The judges thoroughly enjoyed the healthy energy and engagement of so many different sectors of the population. They felt that your team spirit of cooperation was a great role model,” said Laura Malpas of the Northamptonshire Heritage Forum.

In awarding the Heritage Organisation of the Year to the community of Higham Ferrers, the judges said that there was something for everyone in the area: for the young and old, who working together share a similar vision of community harmony and fun.

“It is an important lesson for all who work in heritage to recognise that working together rather than in competition can be inspiring and productive and that mutual support brings rewards. The judges noted that Higham Ferrers Tourism act as effective leaders for their community and are to be commended for their work.”

The judges were: Professor Matthew McCormack from the University of Northamptonshire, Neville Stankley of Nottingham Trent University, Susanne Oliver of Catalyst Solutions and Rachel McGrath, chief executive of the Northamptonshire Community Foundation.

July 2025

MAGNIFICIENT MAPESTRY UNDERGOES A MAKEOVER

Higham Ferrers’s own Bayeux Tapestry is back in the hands of the retired art teacher who designed it. Known as the historic town’s “mapestry” as it features centuries-old houses in the medieval market square and other ancient landmarks, the fabric and thread artwork, created from applique and various embroidery techniques and millions of stitches, took several years to make.

The 1.5-metre long mapestry was the brainchild of former teacher Fay Caddick, who with seven friends – all known as the Material Girls ─ fashioned the unique wall hanging.

“It is our own Bayeux Tapestry as we made it exactly the same as that famous work: first we made separate pieces of the story and then each section was sewn onto a fabric background,” Fay explained.

It was initially displayed in the town’s local library, but when the library closed in 2019, a few years after the mapestry was unveiled, it was decided to move it to the local Henry Chichele Primary School. “But after five years of hanging in the school, we decided that the mapestry was in need of repair,” said Liz Barnatt, chairperson of the Higham Ferrers Tourism Committee, which is supporting the restoration and framing initiative, which is also backed by the Town Council and the Friends of St Mary’s, a secular organisation dedicated to preserving historic buildings and the town’s heritage for future generations.

Brenda Lofthouse and Carol Fitzgerald, chairperson and secretary of the Friends of St Mary’s, collected the mapestry from the school and soon afterwards, Fay started work once again on the mapestry. As all the other Material Girls have moved away from the area, former local French teacher, Therese Easter, volunteered to help.

Fay recalled that after she retired from the Rushden School for Girls (now the Rushden Academy) she used to stroll around the town looking at the historic buildings. That interest and knowledge came in useful when the Material Girls got down to working on the mapestry.

“As well as my local knowledge, we spent a lot of time studying the buildings; the type of stonework and the windows,” she recalled. With the design in her head, Fay had to come up with a way of explaining it to the rest of the Material Girls.

“Initially, we took photographs of the buildings and landmarks and these formed the outline of what we planned to do. Although we only met up in the library for two hours every week, everyone was so keen that the Material Girls all worked on the project at home. We had to find the right pieces of material, which were donated by ourselves and the public”.

Asked about some of the stand-out trees in the mapestry, Fay explained that they had been made from 1960s shaggy rugs. “The mapestry got bigger and bigger over time. People would come into the library where we were working and would suggest places and features to add to the mapestry. It took us nine months to sew the pieces of the story onto the background.”

The repairs are being carried out in the Town Council-backed new Community and Wellbeing Hub at the back of the “old” library building.

Fay and Therese have a September deadline to finish the work so that it can go on display at the Northamptonshire Heritage Forum History Day in Higham Ferrers on Saturday 18 October. It is hoped that the mapestry will find a permanent home in a prominent local building, where it can be viewed by all to see. “We plan to frame the mapestry in Perspex glass to protect it,” Liz Barnatt said.

Town Clerk Alicia Schofield said: “The mapestry is an important and beautiful community fabric artwork and we are pleased to be able to host Fay and Therese at the Community Library and Wellbeing Hub as they undertake their skilled repair work.”

• The Bayeux Tapestry – which depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066 – hangs in the Bayeux Museum in France. The fragile tapestry is also due to undergo preventive conservation and enhancement. The museum will close later this year and a new museum, featuring the renovated Bayeux Tapestry, will reopen in 2027.

March 2025