Ninety-two-year-old Margaret Seaman, Norfolk’s own Queen of Knitting, has raised over £18,000 so far for charity appeals at the county’s three main hospitals with her huge, woolly model of Sandringham House.

This week the great-great-grandmother, who made headlines around the world with her textile masterpiece, held a knit-in with bosses from the Norfolk and Norwich in Norwich, the Queen Elizabeth in Kings Lynn and the James Paget in Great Yarmouth.

Margaret’s needles hardly ever stop and she gave an impromptu knitting lesson to hospital representatives who had gathered at The Forum to thank her for her hard work and dedication.

Margaret’s huge model of the royals’ Norfolk residence was on show at the real Sandringham House this summer and was seen by many thousands of people, including the Queen herself. Before that it was a centrepiece of the Norfolk Makers Festival Showcase at The Forum, in Norwich.

The irrepressible charity knitter, from Caistor, near Yarmouth, said, “I still really can’t believe how much attention my knitting has been getting and how much people loved seeing the model while I was at Sandringham and at The Forum.

“People have been so generous showing their appreciate with donations and I’m delighted that so much money has been raised for local hospitals and local people.”

At the ‘knit in’ at The Forum this week, cash donations made while the Knitted Sandringham was on public display was officially handed over. Margaret continues to raise money for the three hospitals on her Just Giving page, Margaret Knits for Norfolk.

Lynn Crombie, from the N&N Hospitals Charity, said: “We were delighted that Margaret decided to use her talents to support the hospitals in our region and to donate to the N&N Hospitals Charity Boudicca Breast Cancer Appeal, which is supporting patients at our hospital thanks to a dedicated breast cancer unit. On behalf of everyone at the N&N, we would like to thank Margaret and all those generous people who donated.”

Sandringham is not Margaret’s first project, and the recent fundraising is just a fraction of what Margaret has achieved over the past five years. In total her incredible knitted installations have raised tens of thousands for local charities.

Margaret first started making headlines and raising money when she created a twelve foot long, knitted model of Great Yarmouth Sea Front in its 1970s hey-day, a centre piece at the Norfolk Makers Festival in 2019. She also created the ‘NHS Knittingale’ during the national lockdown in 2020.

Photo caption

From left: Yvonne Christley – Deputy Chief Nurse, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Professor Steve Barnett – Chairman, Queen Elizabeth, Margaret Seaman, Maxine Taylor – Charity Co-ordinator, James Paget, Arne Juette, Director of Breast Cancer Screening, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.