A COMMEMORATIVE quilt celebrating buildings that have disappeared from Baldock will be displayed in the town’s community centre.

Ann Martin has lived in the town for almost 30 years and says she was inspired to sew the patchwork quilt after reminiscing about buildings that had vanished from the town.

The 64-year-old said: “I got inspiration from local people in Baldock who said ‘Do you remember so and so that used to be there?’

“I had to do a lot of research on how the town used to be.

“There used to be an old church and old graveyard, now that’s a private house and the graveyard is their garden – I bet they don’t dig too deeply.”

The quilt is around seven feet long and has about 20 different patches on it, each dedicated to a separate building including Kayser Bondor, which stood on the site of Tesco, the Three Horseshoes, which is now an optician’s and chemists, and Drayton’s Removal and Haulage.

The massive design took about seven months to complete and is so large that Mrs Martin had to hang it in Baldock’s specialised knitting store Studio 39 to work on it.

She said: “I have what used to be on the Tesco site, Kayser Bondor, I have got the Three Horseshoes that used to be on the High Street – that’s now an optician’s and I have got the cinema that used to be in Baldock.

“I kept working on it because of people just saying ‘can you put this in’ and I just love sewing.

“It has attracted a lot of interest. It’s going to hang in the community centre and the church want to hang it as well but it depends on how many little grubby fingers go on it to as to how long it’s displayed.