Wool has been part of the human experience for millennia and, discounting animal hides and leather (covered recently in DYA), early felted woollen cloth was the first fabric to be used for clothing. In Britain, sheep’s wool, woollen manufacturing processes and products have been supremely important since the prehistoric era, becoming unrivalled between the 1100s and 1800s. For centuries almost every British town, village and hamlet was involved at some point or other in the rearing of sheep or production of cloth, the development of the woollen industry inextricably linked to the nation’s fortunes throughout history.

Neolithic sheep had coats that naturally moulted, their shed fleece gathered randomly from bushes, but as farming advanced, sheep began to be reared and sheared annually. Different breeds were cross-bred to introduce varying fleeces, the type of yarn produced and the resulting material depending on the quality of the raw wool. Although it is unclear when the first lengths of woollen cloth were woven, excavations reveal a well-developed industry in the Somerset lake villages of Glastonbury and Meare during the Iron Age (beginning c.800 BC). Native sheep’s wool was much admired during the Roman occupation of Britain, and by the third century sturdy woollen rugs and capes/cloaks were the nation’s main exports. The Emperor Diocletian also built what was effectively the first British factory – a military weaving establishment at Winchester. There was probably a woollen dye works at Silchester, while cloth finishing shops operated in major towns.

Following the Romans’ departure from Britain (early 400s AD), possibly sheep were kept as much for manuring agricultural land as for their fleeces. However, woven woollen garment fragments from pagan Anglo-Saxon burial sites include women’s cloaks, pinafore-style gowns and sleeved undergarments, and men’s cloaks, short capes and tunics. Indeed leather, wool and linen were the main dress materials throughout the so-called ‘Dark Ages’: woollen clothes were often colourfully dyed and some corpses were buried in woollen shrouds.

Early hand production of woollen cloth was a laborious process, involving many stages including sorting the fleece, scouring/fulling to remove dirt and grease, teasing/carding, spinning yarn, weaving and fulling. Historically spinning was carried out by women using the distaff and drop spindle, before the introduction of the spinning wheel c.1200s/1300s. Females also did weaving on traditional warp-weighted looms before men began operating the horizontal loom, used in Europe from c.1000 AD. Many Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Viking communities engaged in woollen textile production before 1066: after the Norman Conquest sheep breeding would advance, the British woollen industry poised to enter a new era.