Our Church Flower Group met, as planned, at the North Door of the Abbey on 7th May at 10am – the first day of the National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies’ superlative Festival of Flowers in Westminster Abbey. NAFAS Groups from all over England had shared in the huge organization of this thrilling occasion. To our amazement we were able to go straight in, no queue at all – but on emerging over two hours later there were two queues snaking round the Abbey to enter at the North Door from both sides!
Our first view was of beautiful arrangements all up the North Transept, traditional in style but using the most enviable, exotic flowers. The Abbey glowed with the masses of orchids, proteas, peonies, roses, tulips, lilies, delphiniums, hydrangeas, lyseanthus – in fact a profusion of flowers brought from all over the world, banked by wonderful foliages. Flanking the High Altar were spirals of gold and cream flowers, their colours echoed above and again arranged on the ambulatories high above. Most excitingly, the Coronation Chair behind the tomb of Edward the Confessor was backed by four columns of luminous purple and scarlet, superbly regal! The chapels radiating off the apse were all richly decorated, the colours carefully chosen to echo the stained glass windows or the shapes of statues or obelisks. The tombs against the inner walls had flowers appearing to grow up them as if in a churchyard – it was hard to suppress a longing to tuck a bloom into the folded hands of recumbent figures lying on them! In fact, on the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots, was a small bunch of thistles tied with tartan ribbon……
The stained glass windows were most cleverly embellished with arrangements to harmonize with their colours. The loveliest perhaps were two high windows with glowing blue glass in the south transept for they had pendant mobiles containing all their subtle colours swinging in front of them. The funniest was the stained glass window with St George bravely spearing his dragon – below it was a dramatic arrangement using all the colours of the window plus a most cleverly constructed dragon’s head gnashing his teeth at us below! The cleverest was a flowery copy of Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ just by his memorial. Equally inventive and fascinating were the tableaux which framed the main entrance aisle. These scenes were created on each side of big semi-circular screens to illustrate the talents of the famous scientists, actors, poets, explorers and musicians buried nearby. Three dimensional scenes, incorporating trees, bushes, birds, musical instruments, scientific instruments, statues and vivid flowers – they framed the walk up to the rood screen admirably.
The final glory was to stand by the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior facing into the Abbey for the full height of the pillars nearest the great entrance door were decorated with white arrangements – snowy orchids in great loops were so distinctive. As the eye followed the pillars forward the flower panels high on each became gradually deeper in colour, from white to cream, to pink, then deeper pink until, flanking the rood screen, the arrangements were flamboyantly red and thrilling in their height and complexity.
We left b y the great entrance door, decorated outside as the North Door had been, by beautiful arrangements which were the ideal introduction and farewell to the thrilling Festival of Flowers. It was hard to readjust to the modern world after a magical sojourn walking through such history and tradition, beauty and radiance, but we had had an unforgettable experience.
REJOICE! The Festival of Flowers at Westminster Abbey
Sari Hutton