THERE’S still a handful of days left to visit a unique free exhibition of panels from the world’s largest modern community textile project, at Blackburn Cathedral.

Until the end of the month, 39 embroidered panels are on show in the town after travelling from their permanent home at the Quaker Tapestry Centre, in Kendal.

The textile, made by 4,000 men, women, and children, aged from four to 90, and from 15 different countries, depicts a wealth of stories from the past 350 years.

Each panel is estimated to have taken 800 hours to complete.

Many of the panels celebrate the lives of Lancashire people, including Jonathan Backhouse (1794-1861), who opposed slavery and acted to improve the welfare of Australian aborigines, and Thomas Edmonson (1792-1851), who invented the railway ticket.

One of the most popular panels, to have travelled around the world, was embroidered by the Armitage sisters.

One, 83-year-old Celia Ball, today lives in Blackburn.

Titled the ‘Underground Railroad’, it tells the story of American Quakers who helped fugitive slaves to escape to safe havens in Canada during the 19th century.

Celia had an adventurous early childhood, as her Quaker father, a First World War conscientious objector, fled to northern Canada and farmed virgin prairie before returning to Blackburn in the 1930s.

The roadshow runs until February 28.