As many people know, I spent
my working life as a Spinner of Yarns
that were either Worsted or Woollen.
Production of yarn began at Wangaratta Woollen Mills in March 1923 and
with that anniversary as a trigger, I present the following textile story,
gleaned from the Yorkshire Post.
Let me begin by setting the scene. The story takes place in Swaledale, one
of the northernmost dales (valleys) in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and is
the dale of the River Swale.
A meeting, held in Muker’s sole pub, the Farmers
Arms, in the early 1970s was called to discuss the problem of
unemployment. Muker, with a
population of 309, is one of the villages dotting the landscape of
Swaledale. The meeting decided
that ladies could try hand-knitting garments in their own homes, capitalising on
the dominant local resource; sheep.
The tradition of hand-knitting in Swaledale goes
back hundreds of years to the time when Queen Elizabeth I set a new trend by wearing
knitted stockings. In the 19th
century even men used to knit on their way to work in the lead mines.
Sheep had been domesticated in the Yorkshire Dales
since the Bronze Age (3 – 200 BC) and knitting, as a cottage industry, began in
the 16th century. It is
thought to hold the record for the longest domestic knitting industry in
England. The Yorkshire Dales is
one of the five major regions in the British Isles that has developed its own
distinctive traditional designs.
In Muker’s pub it was a David Morris and his wife
Grizel, who were driving the proposal of reviving their cottage industry by
hand-knitting traditional designs.
David had some garments made and hung on a wall in the main street. They were bought by walkers passing
through and the thing just escalated from there.
A shop was soon needed where visitors from many
parts of Europe, along with America and even some from Australia, came to
buy. Prince Charles had visited
the shop several times and in 2004 he came on a formal visit. He bought gloves and placed an order
for more. When Camilla was seen
wearing Charles’ gloves, the villagers made her a pair in her own size. Prince Charles thinks highly of the
traditional skills evident in Swaledale Woollens. Today the 35 knitters use wool mainly from Swaledale sheep,
but with some from Wensleydale and Welsh breeds for additional colour and
texture.
vvv
