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'A great honour': Shropshire-based hat maker created bespoke headwear for Queen's funeral

A Shropshire-based milliner provided hats for half a dozen attendees of the Queen's funeral on Monday.

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Bridgnorth-based Lady Laura Cathcart has been making hats for 15 years

Lady Laura Cathcart, 38, created hats for funeral attendees including Samantha Cameron, Lady Sophie Windsor and Laura Parker Bowles.

Lady Cathcart, who lives just outside Bridgnorth, has established herself as one of the country's top society milliners and has spent the last 11 years dressing royals and stars of stage and screen.

Samantha Cameron was one of six attendees to wear one of Lady Cathcart's creations

"It started out as a hobby," Lady Cathcart explained.

"I happen to really like wearing hats. Then, one thing led to another and people started asking me to make hats for them."

Lady Cathcart said she felt privileged to have her work involved in the Queen's funeral.

Daughter of the Queen Consort, Laura Parker Bowles also wore one of the hats to the funeral on Monday

"To have been asked to make hats for such an occasion, it was a great, great honour," she said.

Lady Cathcart has now been creating bespoke headwear for 15 years. Since starting her business in 2011, she has dressed Elizabeth Hurley for her TV show The Royals, Princess Beatrice, Catherine Jenkins and members of the Romanov family for the 100th anniversary memorial of the death of the last tsar.

Most recently, Lady Cathcart has been creating Edwardian hats for a drama filmed at her own home at Upton Cressett Hall.

She lives at the Elizabethan manor house with her husband, society writer William Cash and their two children.

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