Lace Samples from Time Capsule. Photography: David Sillitoe

Our Lace

The panels that cover our building are embossed with a Victorian lace design, based on cherry blossom, according to botanists. The lace was preserved in a small book of samples and placed in a time capsule by an unknown Victorian in 1847, together with two pairs of gloves, a knitted purse and some loose pieces of lace were with it. All of the items were representative of Nottingham industries at the time. The time capsule was buried beneath the foundation stone of the Nottingham Corporation Water Works offices where Marks & Spencers’ main shop stands now.

Our lace was labelled ‘Specimens of Machine Finished Laces made by Rd Birkin, Basford 1847’.Richard Birkin started his company in Nottingham in 1827 and it grew to be one of the largest and most innovative in the country – it only stopped making lace in 2004. Birkin’s initials can still be seen over the entrances to the family’s former lace warehouses on Broadway in the Lace Market.  Richard Birkin was three times Lord Mayor of Nottingham.