A SEAMSTRESS is celebrating her silver anniversary in one of the most unusual jobs in the hotel trade.

For the last 25 years, talented needlewoman Karen Riley has kept the ornate four-poster bed drapes, curtains and wall coverings at Lumley Castle Hotel, near Chester-le-Street, in top conditions.

As well as looking after the soft furnishings in the 73 bedrooms, the 50-year-old also carries out running repairs to the medieval costumes worn by staff during the four-star hotel’s regular Elizabethan banquets.

Staff at the 600-year-old hotel have now converted a room in one of the castle’s ancient stone turrets into a workroom for her, complete with two electric sewing machines.

One of her recent jobs has been to make curtains and pelmets for a three-metre high window and line the walls of the hotel’s historic Bede Room with silk.

“That was possibly the hardest thing I’ve done in all my time here,” she said. “The fabric on every single wall had to be hand pleated with every pleat perfectly spaced – it was very complicated but the result is amazing, I’m very proud of it indeed.

“I have no plans to retire just yet, though,” she said.

“I’m really incredibly fortunate to have been able to make a living, for so long, doing something I love so much.”