Yes, you read the title correctly! At the last session Kay brought in metallic dragon scales for us to decorate.

Information on the Rochester Cathedral website tells us that Textus Roffensis is a Mediæval manuscript written in Rochester in the 1120s at the Priory of St.Andrew’s. It is one of the most important Mediæval manuscripts in England and it includes the earliest English laws recorded, dating back to the 7th century. It was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 2022.

One of the beautiful images in the illuminated manuscript is a dragon. To celebrate 900 years of the manuscript, local artist Wendy Daws has designed ‘Draco Roffensis:The Rochester Dragon’. A 15m long sculpture with thousands of metal foil scales in gold, silver and copper colours, the dragon will hang in the nave this summer.

Visitors to the Cathedral (aged 5+) are invited to decorate a scale to be added to the dragon. As Kay works there she brought along a pack of scales and invited us to get creative. We embossed patterns on the scales by resting them on cardboard, magazines and foam and used sharp pencils and embossing tools to decorate each scale. It was very satisfying making patterns on the surface of the smooth scales and when finished we could turn the scales over and feel the texture on the other side.

During the evening we made 31 scales. If you want to emboss one please visit the Cathedral very soon and it can be added to the dragon. All details are below, including when you can visit the dragon. Kay has gained permission for us to visit the private gardens at the rear of the Cathedral again on Saturday 24th August, so if you come along that day you will be able to view the dragon in the nave.

More details are on the Cathedral website… www.rochestercathedral.org/dragon

Well done everyone, the dragon scales looked beautiful in the hall, so they’ll look amazing on Draco Roffensis. Thank you for bringing in the scales, Kay, it was very enjoyable embossing them!