A North East seamstress is celebrating her silver anniversary in one of the hotel industry’s most unusual jobs.
When Karen Riley, 50, first joined the staff at 600-year-old Lumley Castle Hotel 25 years ago it was to assist a couple of volunteers in keeping the hotel’s ornate four poster bed drapes, curtains and wall coverings in tip-top condition.
Now, a quarter of a century later, the talented needlewoman is solely responsible, not only for the 73-bedroom hotel’s soft furnishings, but for the costumes worn by staff at Elizabethan banquets and special events – and she has no plans to stop sewing.
Bosses at the four star hotel, at Chester-le-Street, County Durham, have even converted a room in one of its ancient stone turrets into a workroom for her, complete with two electric sewing machines and an overlocker.
There, Karen carries out repairs, designs and creates the pelmets, swags and drapes which adorn the hotel’s bedrooms and magnificent State Rooms as well as the table linen for its renowned Black Knight Restaurant.
“The scale and variety of soft furnishings here at Lumley has grown considerably over the years, which has been challenging and very rewarding,” she says. “Although I now work alongside an interior designer, who decides the colour schemes and overall look, I do have some input – after all, I’m the person who has to make it all work.”
As well as ensuring the Elizabethan-inspired costumes worn by the hotel’s front of house staff are well maintained, Karen’s recent tasks have included making curtains and pelmets for a three metre high window and lining the walls of the hotel’s historic Bede Room with silk.
“That was possibly the hardest thing I’ve done in all my time here,” she said. “The fabric on every single wall had to be hand pleated with every pleat perfectly spaced – it was very complicated but the result is amazing, I’m very proud of it indeed.”
Like her predecessors, Karen has secured the occasional help of a young woman from the village and, in doing so, may have secured the future of needlework at Lumley Castle Hotel.
“I have no plans to retire just yet, though,” she said, “I’m really incredibly fortunate to have been able to make a living, for so long, doing something I love so much.”
