ON A spring day in 1896 a young woman from Kirkburton called Marion Cameron walked down the aisle of the parish church to meet her groom, Stanley Ashworth Taylor.

She was wearing a fashionable and probably quite costly full-length skirt and heavily beaded jacket with leg ‘o mutton sleeves. The two-piece was in mourning mauve because Marion had lost her mother the year before.

After the wedding the new Mrs Taylor, still attired in her wedding outfit, travelled by train all the way to Scotland for her honeymoon.

Over the weekend of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – 116 years later – the same mauve two-piece will be seen in public once again as part of an exhibition of 19 wedding dresses from the past 11 decades to be staged at All Hallows Parish Church, Kirkburton.

The exhibition includes dresses loaned by parishioners and a small but exclusive collection of replica gowns with an historical association.

Marion’s dress, now in the safe keeping of her grandson and his wife – John and Janet Jessop – will be the oldest original dress on show and will be seen alongside three other gowns from the weddings of her descendants.

The Taylors, who lived in the Taylor and Middlewood’s mill house in Newsome for much of their 46-years of married life, had three daughters, one of whom, Judith Taylor, married her sweetheart Ronald Jessop, in 1934. Judith’s elegant ivory satin, bias-cut dress, is from an entirely different era to that of her Victorian mother. The Thirties was a time of movie-star glamour and slender silhouettes.

Judith and Ronald had one son, John Jessop, who married his wife Janet at Almondbury Parish Church in May 1966. The couple have lived in Kirkburton all their married life. Janet, who is one of the organiser’s of the Kirkburton jubilee exhibition, will also be showing her own gown, a high-necked, long-sleeved lace design, which looks strangely familiar.

“It’s very Kate Middleton,” she says. “At the time I wanted a high neckline and lace but now I think I should have worn John’s mother’s dress because it’s so lovely.”

Her Sixties gown was created by a dress-maker in Huddersfield. “My father said I could only spend £25 so I had to have it made. I remember going to Manchester to buy the material,” added Janet.

Fourth in the family collection is the wedding dress of John and Janet’s daughter Rachael, who married her husband Julian Atkinson in 1994.

Her dress, a casual white and lightly sequined dress by designer label Ghost came ready-made from Harvey Nicholls. “I think it cost about £500,” said Rachael, who also lives in Kirkburton. It was her second marriage, so she looked for a dress that would double up as evening wear.

“I didn’t want to look formal at all. I bought the dress with the intention of dyeing it and wearing it afterwards but in reality I never did because I just don’t go to the sort of places where you need that kind of dress,” she explained.

The Jessop family’s collection, spanning a century, shows how much fashions have changed – from the formal, fussy and beautifully tailored late Victorian period to the somewhat more revealing strappy dresses worn by modern brides.

But the exhibition will also feature replicas of even more elaborate and famous dresses.

Another parishioner and organiser, Shirley Lingwood, enlisted the help of her daughter Carol, who is head of costume at the National Theatre, to find something a bit different to draw the crowds.

Carol, who is also an external examiner in costume at universities around the country, including Huddersfield, asked final year students if they could come up with replica gowns from famous women in history.

“They really enjoyed the challenge and what they’ve done so far is absolutely stunning,” said Shirley. “The dresses are still being worked on but we’re really looking forward to having them in the exhibition.”

Visitors to Kirkburton’s All Hallows Parish Church will be able to see the exhibition from Friday, June 1, until Tuesday, June 5.

WHAT makes the Kirkburton Parish Church bridal wear exhibition different from others planned for the jubilee weekend is the inclusion of four handmade replica gowns from historical figures.

The gowns are currently being made by final year students on costume courses at Huddersfield, Glamorgan and Bournemouth universities.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to gaze upon the Queen’s wedding gown from 1947, designed by Norman Hartnell; her coronation robes; the bridal dress of Florentine princess Marie de Medici, who married the King of France, Henry IV, in 1600; also the wedding gown of Princess Charlotte of Wales, wife of Prince Leopold, who died in 1817 just a year after her marriage.

The dresses form part of the students’ final collections and have been drawn together by the head of costume at the National Theatre, Carol Lingwood, who is formerly from Huddersfield.

Carol is an external assessor and industry expert at the three universities.