A DETERMINED villager has completed a five-year labour of love for her church.

St Peter's Church, Osmotherley, has a new millennium kneeler for the altar, designed and stitched in the village by Dorothy Henderson, 73.

Mrs Henderson said she volunteered to make the kneeler five years ago, without realising how big it needed to be.

The 18ft tapestry features people wearing period costume from the past 2,000 years.

Mrs Henderson came up with the design, but had help stitching it on to canvas from villagers, and members of an embroidery group, which meets at her home.

"I came up with the idea of people walking from the darkness into the light, as this is a sort of Christian concept, and then I decided to make the people from different periods, through their costume," she said.

"It didn't start out as a millennium project, but it became one, and we got it finished in time. I have never done anything like this before, just the ordinary, small church kneelers."

Mrs Henderson was presented with flowers and thanked at a service in the church.