RESIDENTS at Maiden Castle House care home in Dorchester have been amazed by the generosity of a Weymouth girl who donated handmade quilts.

As reported in the Dorset Echo, Pepper-Rose Stuart, aged seven, has been using her mother's old sewing machine to make lap quilts.

Pepper-Rose donated the quilts to the Maiden Castle House care home because her grandfather is a resident at the residential and dementia care home.

Maiden Castle House Home Manager Rachel Sohorye said: “On behalf of the residents here, I’d like to say thank you to Pepper-Rose for such a kind gesture. The quilts are lovely and the residents were delighted to receive them.

“Although the residents can’t have physical visitors during the lockdown, we are trying to make it ‘business as usual’ as far as possible. We have lots of activities to keep everyone entertained and the staff are making sure loved ones can stay in contact, but kind gestures like this and the other donations we have received are a huge boost for everyone.”

Residents of the Care South-managed home will now be writing thank you cards and letters to send to Pepper-Rose.

Pepper-Rose's mother, Stephanie Stuart, said: "I make patchwork quilts anyway as a hobby and Pepper has been watching me and she wanted to give it a go.

"I gave her my old sewing machine and since then she has been whizzing away on it.

"Every single evening she wants to go on the sewing machine and make more quilts. She loves it."

Pepper-Rose has always been a charitable girl. In 2019 she cut off over 50cm of her hair to donate to the Little Princess Trust which provides real hair wigs to children and young people with cancer.

It took her two-and-a-half years to grow her hair so that it was long enough to be donated and she raised more than £100 for the charity at the same time.

Pepper-Rose suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, a condition she developed after contracting a virus when she was four. Her mother thinks that might be the reason her daughter is so charitable.