RUSH MATS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20984, 12 March 1938, Page 17

RUSH MATS

DUCHESS OF KENT’S INTEREST The Duchess of Kent is so charmed with the effect of rush mats on some of the floors at Sandringham that she is thinking of introducing them at her own country hQtjse —Coppins, writes Marianne Mayfayre in the London “Dally Telpgrapli." Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra have many opportunities of playing on these mats during their long stay at Sandringham, where they remained while their parents were on the Continent. Queen Mary discovered the mats some years ago. Similar ones were made in bygone centuries for the stone floqts of baronial hails. 1 Country girls went to London on February 14 from Rockland Broad, where the Norfolk rush and reed Industry has made great progress in recent years under the leadership of Colonel and Airs F. G. Chamberlin. They ' visited No. 3 Belgrave Square with hand-plaited mats for which the rushes were gathered after the fall of the leaf, cured, and stored so that wind could blow through them. There is nothing to equal these mats for stone floors. They ar? green at first, but later become golden brown in colour. The Duchess saw typical samples of this ancient craft of the Fens: mats made of strands plaited together: others of coils sewn together edgeways to produce a depth into which the sink luxuriously.