The Great British Story - Spinning at Hall Place

On Saturday I took part in an event which was linked to the BBC series The Great British Story - A People's History. The series is about the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain through history. 

To accompany the series there are events being held around the country to help people discover more about their past. The event I took part in was at Hall Place, a Tudor House in Bexley, Kent. I went with my friends Viv and Della - from Wye Community Farm, and Della's daughter Cat. We represented the Kent Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers.  

It was an unusual brief. Normally we rock up with our wheels and things we have made and take the day as it comes. The usual 'script' is about the process of spinning wool. This time the brief was different. We were there to give people a peek into the past. Now I consider myself to be a 21st century spinner, I don't particularly spin to recreate history, I spin in the here and now. Could I manage to talk all day about the lives of women in the past? I really wasn't sure if I knew enough about the history of spinning. 

Then there was the matter of deciding what to take for display. As it was an event with a history focus I asked my fellow Guild members to loan items which would fit in with the historical theme - nothing mill spun, nothing chemically dyed, nothing modern in design. That limited our choice of display materials but on the day we could honestly say that everything was handspun and either undyed or dyed with historic natural dyes. 

Yarns naturally dyed by Guild members

 The display looked good and showed people what could be achieved with ancient techniques. Guild members even lent a replica great wheel and a genuine antique flax wheel - which fell apart at every opportunity. 

The Great Wheel

People were fascinated to see us spinning. One person was convinced spinning wheels today were 'only made for demonstration' and 'didn't really work'! No I did not spend the best part of £450 on a wheel just to look pretty. 

We met members of the Guild of One-Name Studies, they research surnames and had seen many occupations related to wool in the census returns but were not sure what those occupations would have involved. It was exciting swopping knowledge to gain a better picture of the lives of textile workers in the past.

Taking part in this event has made me think about those forgotten women across thousands of years who spun every inch of yarn the world needed. Now I feel inspired to find out more about the history of wool and handspinning. Do you know of any good books or websites?

The TV programme, presented by Michael Wood, airs on BBC2 on Fridays at 9:00pm. 

 Thanks to Cat Newman for the photographs.

The origins of my yarn

I promised to tell you over a week ago about the yarn I’ve been dyeing.  I’ve been keeping you waiting, but all for a good cause. So much has been going on.  

Last weekend I had a stand at Fibre East, my first ever stand at a fibre event.  The weekend before I was demonstrating hand spinning at the Kent County Show with my Guild.  Sadly it poured with rain both days I was there so I spent several soggy hours spinning damp feeling fibre with the wind blowing the rain into the tent, spattering my wheel.  When I was off duty I did get to lurk around the sheep lines taking photos of each breed.  I also caught up with the Sheep Show guys.  If you’ve never seen The Sheep Show it is well worth watching.  Hilarious and educational, I never get bored of the performance. 

This week I have been trying to reconcile what I thought I sold at Fibre East with what I actually sold and get my stock sorted and back into storage.  I have also written an article for YarnMaker about Fibre East, the deadline was today.  Things have been completely manic.

Now I’ve got that lot off my chest let’s get back to yarns.  The yarn I have been dyeing is rather special, it comes from fleeces I selected at shearing time.  I had the fleeces spun at a small mill near me and I have been dyeing some skeins with natural dyes and some with acid dyes.  The sheep the wool came from are all Texel cross North of England Mules.  This type of sheep is normally bred for meat but the particular sheep who contributed their fleeces to the yarn are pets.  I will try to explain the sheep production system in the UK so you can understand how these crossbred sheep came about.  

The North of England Mule is a very important sheep in the UK.  The Mule is created by breeding a Blue Face Leicester (BFL) ram with a Swaledale, an upland sheep.  The Swaledale ewes are good mothers and very hardy but may only have one lamb.  Swaledales also tend to be on the small side.  Blue Face Leicester sheep produce lots of milk and have multiple lambs but they are long, tall leggy creatures, not very meaty.  Crossing the Swaledale ewe with the BFL ram produces the North of England Mule, an excellent mother who will have lots of lambs and produce plenty of milk.  To make sure those lambs will please the butcher, The North of England Mule ewe is put to a meaty ram, such as a Texel.  So we get the Texel cross Mule. 

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of Blue Face Leicester sheep or Swaledales, I haven’t come across any here in the south but I do have a picture of a Texel from the Kent County Show.  He isn’t really yellow, he has been dyed temporarily for the show.

See how stocky this sheep is?  This breed have been developed for meat production.

 This isn’t a great picture but this sheep is a fairly typical North of England Mule, see how slim she is compared to the Texel?

As you will know if you are a spinner, Blue Face Leicester sheep produce superb wool.  Swaledale wool is coarser.  With North of England Mules you see a range of fleece quality, their fleeces are generally long but the BFL seems to come through more in some sheep than others.  Although bred for meat, Texels also have decent fleece.  I only selected outstanding fleeces for my yarn, fleeces with a long staple length, good lustre and softness.  I was very excited to get the finished yarn back from the mill.  The yarn has a good lustre and is soft although not as soft as the wool from purebred BFL sheep.  At Fibre East I wore a scarf knitted from the yarn for two days against my skin.  Some people may not be comfortable with the yarn against their skin but I found it perfectly acceptable.

Here are some of the lovely sheep who contributed their fleeces to my yarn:

 

Look at that lovely fleece!

More about my yarn and the sheep the fleece came from next time!

An impromptu sheep dog demonstration

As a member of the Kent Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers, I did a spinning demonstration for Kent Wildlife Trust at their Queendown Warren Nature Reserve yesterday.  It was a perfect day, lovely sunny weather, a beautiful setting and once we were set up, I was sat in a field under a gazebo spinning and watching the sheep.  What could be better?  

There were due to be a couple of sheep dog demonstrations during the day but the staff assured me the sheep would not be used for the demo as they aren’t used to being worked with a dog.  Instead the sheep dog would drive a few ducks around the obstacle course.  

Kent Wildlife Trust use Hebridean and Herdwick sheep for conservation grazing. 

 

The black sheep on the left with horns is a Hebridean ewe, the dark lamb on the right is a Herdwick

 

A Herdwick ewe

Conservation grazing is where a hardy primitive breed of sheep, cattle or ponies are used to manage a landscape.  In this case the Queendown Warren Reserve is chalk grassland.  The sheep’s job is munch any scrub which might try to grow.   Conservation grazing has its downside, the main concern being that the animals get enough food.  The primitive breeds used are well adapted to living on poor grazing but in their home environment they would probably range over a mountain or two whereas with conservation grazing the animals are often fenced into a relatively small area, limiting their food supply.  I was pleased to see these sheep had plenty of grass and were in good condition. 

Meet the sheep

The Herdwick lambs were pure bred but the Hebridean ewes had been put to a Southdown ram.  Yes, I know, I’m talking about Southdowns again.  I think the breed is stalking me.  Everywhere I turn I see a round woolly face looking at me!  The Hebridean cross Southdown lambs were lovely and chunky, most of them were white with brown faces and white head wool. 

 

Here is a pure Hebridean ewe with her Southdown cross lamb

The staff told me the Southdown nature has come through in the lambs.  Southdowns are notoriously difficult to move, some people describe them as docile, I’m not sure that’s the word I would use.  You can be jumping up and down waving your arms in the air and whooping and a Southdown will just stand there and look at you where a normal sheep would have had a panic attack and jumped out of the pen.  The staff told me when they are moving the sheep the Hebridean ewes run off but their crossbred lambs stay put so the ewes have to come back for their lambs.  When the Hebrideans had pure bred lambs the lambs would run with their mothers.  The ewes must be puzzled by their strange offspring.

Anyway, I was in full flow describing some detail of the spinning process when I heard an unusual amount of baaing.  I looked up and saw the sheep were charging up the hill shouting to each other.  Then I saw a group of excited Herdwicks my side of the fence.  No doubt all the baaing would translate as ‘Have you heard?  The gate’s open.  Let’s go next door girls!’  Sheep are flock animals, if one takes the lead the whole flock will follow.  I really didn’t fancy spending the rest of the day chasing semi wild sheep around Kent.

The sheep flocking up the Warren

Salvation came in the shape of the sheep dog demonstrator.  In the demonstration, the dog had moved a few ducks around a course with the trainer close by.  Now the dog shot off out of sight over the brow of the hill while the trainer stayed where he was, controlling the dog with a whistle.  He looked perfectly calm.  I wondered if the dog could actually do the job, moving a bunch of large stubborn ewes is very different from moving ducks.  Some sheep dogs are afraid of sheep.  They just aren’t assertive enough.  I’ve seen a single ewe chase a young sheep dog round and round a trailer.

However, after a few moments a tightly bunched group of Herdwicks appeared, heading in the right direction.  The dog was well back from the sheep and working beautifully.  ‘Let’s see if he can get them through the gate.’  I thought.  But the bunch of runaways trotted straight through the gateway and the dog came streaking back tail wagging to a round of applause.  An impressive impromptu demonstration.