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Magna Flora Flower Festival

  • 15th September 2015

I must confess that I have a truly wonderful job - as Editor of Flora International magazine, I get to travel to flower festivals here, there and everywhere and this time it was the turn of Salisbury Cathedral to receive a visit.

As if this Cathedral isn't magnificent enough already, during the period of 15 to 20 September 2015, it was decorated with the glories of flowers, foliage and creative designs, bringing to a close the programme of events which the Cathedral has offered in commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta.

Creative Director of Salisbury Cathedral Flowers, Michael Bowyer MBE, together with professional florist and lecturer Angela Turner and NAFAS national demonstrator Pam Lewis were the designers in charge, and with the help of 500 flower arrangers from within the diocese and flower clubs from the South West, Wessex and Jersey and Dorset and Guernsey Areas of NAFAS, they created a magnificent floral tribute to one of the most important documents ever written.

Amongst the splendid Gothic architecture I found 25 barons with their shields, a field of hay within four metal arches, beautiful pedestal arrangements, lampshades made with 10,000 heads of Physalis (Chinese lanterns) strung onto gold bullion wire, designs depicting the chaos that reigned before the historic sealing and the order that came afterwards, designs resembling cushions, autumnal cornucopias, tables laden with wine and ale, fruits and breads and the stunning nave altar with its canopy installation above composed of Magna Carta copies, panels of dried leaves and muslin with permanent fruits and hydrangeas and the Cross fashioned from Cornus and crab apples. And the list goes on...

A feast for the eyes and the soul.


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