Marchmont House - Acorn Braid

A narrow braid incorporating naturalistic acorn drops for Marchmont House

Marchmont House is an imposing ‘Grade A’ listed Palladian mansion built in 1750 by Hugh Hume-Campbell, 3rd Earl of Marchmont.  Acorns feature prominently in many designs within the house and a winged acorn is the Heraldic Badge of the current owner, Oliver Burge.

The brief from Atholl Macfarlane at Remus Interiors was to create 2 narrow braids to be used on a unique hand carved oak four poster bed. The fabrics were green and cream with a very dark green embroidery.  As well as a plain braid to go round the top of the bed the client particularly wanted to incorporate little acorn shapes into the design on the braid to go down the edges of the drapes. I’ve used covered acorn shapes on braid before – but smaller and covered with coloured silk. In this case the client wanted them to be more naturalistic so I used a mix of creamy brown colours for the nut part and green for the cups. It was quite complex and is by far the most time consuming braid I have ever made!

After weaving the plain braid  I added another wire to create the correct length for the little loops that would later be used to tie on the acorns:

The “body” of the acorn is made from a wooden mould which I covered with thread in a mix of golden brown colours before inserting little tufts into the ends.

Having made the cord in the appropriate colour each individual cup was made around a cardboard former before being attached to the nut:

Then they were attached to the braid at 2cm intervals:

Once the finished braid was in situ the client liked the acorns so much he decided to add another line of them around the top of the bed too.

Unfortunately, this wonderful bed is in a private apartment so cannot be seen if you visit the house but there are many other interesting things to make a visit well worthwhile. Whilst not open to the public on a regular basis it is worth checking out their website for special events.