TUMBLING down a pillar in Pembridge Church is a dramatic ‘Poppy Waterfall’, a labour of love crafted by a group of women in time to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armistice in 1918.

An estimated 6,500 knitted poppies have been produced for Pembridge over the past four years in commemoration of the First World War, hundreds of them incorporated into the dramatic cascade suspended from a 25ft column beside the chancel steps in St Mary’s Church.

Pembridge Poppy Knitting Group has been meeting regularly in order to boost the village’s tribute in this Armistice centenary year. Remarkably, an appeal for knitters was answered by 97-year-old Vera Hobby, who lives near Gladestry. Her sterling efforts have added a further 34 hand-crafted poppies to the overall display.

In the meantime, the work continues at Pembridge. The group has plans to create a ‘mini-waterfall’ of poppies hanging from the detached belfry and there is to be a ‘field of poppies’, crosses and a ‘silent soldier’ silhouette.

Sharon O’Hare said the knitters had begun their task in 2014, a century after the outbreak of war in 1914.

“This year we’ve had a real push to get more poppies knitted,” she said. “People have sent them in, so that we have poppies in all shapes and sizes, and we probably have made 6,5000.”

When the WW1 commemorations are over, the group has plans to “recycle” the work of so many hands. “We may make them into poppy blankets as they look nice and they are woollen,” she said.

Mrs O’Hare had herself volunteered to climb up the tower steps to drape the ‘waterfall’ from a small window high up in the nave.