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Much of the material that clothed the in England from Roman times until the 18th century was made from wool. A large proportion of this was manufactured in the West Riding especially between the 16th – 18th century. The product ranged from baby clothes, undergarments, hats, dresses, coats & shawls to blankets. The cloth was woven then taken to the “fulling mills” to be washed and felted matt the fibres together which shrank the cloth and made it thicker.
Following the 18th century enclosure of common land by the surrounding estates into smaller farmsteads. The farms were often too small to live off, hence small holders turned to cloth making to supplement incomes. Some who were very successful gave up farming altogether to concentrate on production. The area surrounding our mill in Huddersfield is dotted with stone-built Weavers Cottages, “dual-economy” houses which had multiple windows to the upper weaving floors to allow the natural light into the work area and a ground-floor living space beneath usually with small windows that assisted warmth. These were built generally between the late 18th century until the 1840’s and are a fabulous legacy our area’s textile heritage. The cloth made was sold through weekly markets with Almondbury market (the bigger town in those days) then dating back to least 1294. Huddersfield then developed their own market in 1671. Huddersfield probably sealed its premier league textile status in 1766 when Sir John Ramsden in 1766 built a purpose-built Cloth Hall in Huddersfield to market the fabrics. From the late 1780’s technical developments of machines allowed a few manufacturing processes to be housed in smaller mills. Then by the late 1860’s massive integrated steam powered woollen mills were built with all stages of woollen process housed under one roof. The might of the Huddersfield area grew as did the renown of the town.
The site we still manufacture on today was producing yarns from the 1850’s and the company as it is today was established in 1896.