Riverhouse’s Mount Felix Tapestry has finished its hugely successful tour of New Zealand from July 2018 to September 2019. This beautiful community stitch project commemorates the centenary of the Mount Felix Hospital in Walton throughout WWI. The Mount Felix hospital (New Zealand General Hospital 2) was created for soldiers from New Zealand wounded at Gallipoli and later battles. We have discovered moving true stories of soldiers from the hospital, on their journey from New Zealand through fighting at Gallipoli, being wounded and shipped to Mount Felix. We have identified three stories of soldiers who met and fell in love with their future wives during their time at Mount Felix. These stories as well as those of nurses, doctors and members of the community of Walton create a narrative.
This narrative was beautifully illustrated by Andrew Crummy who designed The Great Tapestry of Scotland among others. Over 600 stitchers contributed to the tapestry, from school children, to nurses in New Zealand and even soldiers at Headley Court. During the recent tour of New Zealand two more panels were stitched and we hope to be able to show these in an exhibition later in the year.
Panel 43 – Ode to Mount Felix – the End of the Story
This panel features a beautiful poem by one of the patients who was stunned by the beauty and tranquility of his surroundings after the horrors of war. The patients enjoyed the river and were sometimes seen out and about in mobile beds. There is a postcard of one such patient and on the back of it is written ‘Old Mick – a fine old fellow, do anything for the patients’. In 1919 a serious fire destroyed five hospital marquees and a considerable amount of equipment. The number of patients gradually decreased and the No.2 New Zealand Hospital closed in March 1920, with Oatlands Park Hospital having closed in September 1919. Between them, by the end of the war, they had nearly 1,900 beds, and some 27,000 patients had been treated during their operational life. Stitchers: Marion Millinger and Alexandra Withers, on behalf of 1st Weybridge Guides
