AN INTERNATIONALLY-known author has discovered an unused design for a cushion, meant for Winchester Cathedral.

Tracy Chevalier, best known for her novel Girl with a Pearl Earring, gave a lecture to the Friends of Winchester Cathedral about her most recent novel, A Single Thread.

The background to the novel is the work of Louisa Pesel and Sybil Blunt and the setting up of a ‘Broderers Association’ in Winchester.

Nine decades ago Louisa Pesel, a embroiderer and textile specialist, began a project which was to turn into a highly treasured cathedral collection.

Along with an accomplished artist, Sybil Blunt, they had been invited to create hundreds of kneelers, cushions and alms bags.

Over a period of five years in the early 1930s, hundreds of embroidered items were produced which formed a pictorial history of both the cathedral and the diocese of Winchester.

It was the first time any such project had been attempted by a British cathedral.

It is said to have influenced cathedral and church embroideries around the world and is officially known as the ‘Winchester Style’.

In the first year of the project, more than two hundred volunteers put themselves forward to be trained for the stitching work.

A year after the publication of A Single Thread, Tracy Chevalier visited the office of the Friends of the Winchester Cathedral after learning it was where the original drawings of the embroidery designs were kept.

However, there was one important design among all the others which was never made into a finished cushion.

It depicted the names of three most celebrated Hampshire women: Florence Nightingale, Jane Austen and Charlotte Yonge.

Tracy said: “I’ve always been surprised that Jane Austen doesn’t have a cushion in the cathedral and I suppose that’s because I’m a writer.”

She still doesn't know why this particular design was singled out to be discarded but thinks it should be included among Winchester’s other embroideries.

After the event the Friends of the Cathedral chairman, Bruce Parker, said he’d be suggesting to his fellow trustees that the cushion be commissioned as part of the organisation’s 90th anniversary celebrations.

Bruce said: “It’s a wrong that needs righting. Perhaps, in the future, it could be the cushion the Dean herself sits on.”