Home now and I've had chance to take the sampler out of the frame. As I thought, its stitched on needlepoint canvas in wool rather than cross stitch with cotton.
The actual sampler has been glued to the backing board at some point but the glue was so dry that it came away at the corners .
Interestingly, the light grey at the bottom has smudges of purple in it and when I compared it to the alphabet it shows as a purple grey.
The stitches are a bit chaotic but I think that I will chart it and at some point stitch it as a cross stitch in the original colours to hang alongside it once I've had it reframed.
