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The Fate of Rush Matting in the Hands of Felicity Irons

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The Fate of Rush Matting in the Hands of Felicity Irons
Harvesting English freshwater bulrush. Irons’s team harvests on the River Great Ouse in Bedfordshire. The team also harvests on River Great Ouse in Cambridgeshire, the River Nene in Northamptonshire, and on the River Ivel in Bedfordshire. Rush Matters
Lorraine Ferrier
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Felicity Irons is one of the last rush matters working in the UK and runs the only business that does the whole process from harvest to home product, she says. In 2017, she was awarded a British Empire Medal, a national honor, for her work.

Not only has Irons created a sustainable local business based on the traditional craft of harvesting and plaiting bulrush by hand, but she’s reinvigorated a craft that had nearly disappeared if it were not for a fateful meeting on a rural riverbank.

Lorraine Ferrier
Lorraine Ferrier
Author
Lorraine Ferrier writes about fine arts and craftsmanship for The Epoch Times. She focuses on artists and artisans, primarily in North America and Europe, who imbue their works with beauty and traditional values. She's especially interested in giving a voice to the rare and lesser-known arts and crafts, in the hope that we can preserve our traditional art heritage. She lives and writes in a London suburb, in England.
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