Where Wool Begins:
Sheep & Shearing
Sheep grazing the hills around Moretonhampstead provided the wool that supported the town’s historic wool trade. For generations, local farmers raised sheep for both meat and wool, with shearing marking a key moment in the farming year.
Once shorn, the fleece was graded and sorted before being sent on for further processing. Wool from farms around Moretonhampstead formed the first step in a local industry that would pass through the hands of wool combers, spinners, weavers, fullers and clothiers across the region.
Shearing sheep, 2013 - J. Reddaway at Cossick Farm
Farmer Charles Bennett watching over his son Arthur and other sheep shearers at Quintatown Farm, Chagford, in the 1930s
Yeoman shearing team in the 1950s: Fred, Reg, Reg Snr & Percy Rice (L-R) They worked as contract shearers in the East Dartmoor area, using a Lister barn engine to power their electric clippers
From Fleece to Fibre:
Preparing the Wool
Once the sheep had been shorn, the fleece had to be cleaned, prepared and carded or combed before it could be spun. For much of the woollen industry in Moretonhampstead, wool was either carded or combed by hand, using teasels or combs. Between 1790–1830, machines were used in the area.
Carding used wooden paddles covered in small metal teeth to tease the fibres apart, forming soft rolls ready for spinning.
Carding Machine
Combing used long metal combs to straighten the fibres and remove shorter strands, producing smoother wool for finer yarns and cloths.
Serge makers, or clothiers, would travel to farms around the area to buy wool. Spinning was outsourced to domestic workers across north-east Dartmoor.
After the wool had been spun it was sold at the yarn market; originally in Green Hill and then later in Lime Street, Moretonhampstead.
New Yarn Market in Lime Street, around 1860
Crafting Wool into Yarn:
Spinning & Weaving
Once wool had been cleaned and prepared, it could be spun into yarn and woven into cloth. These skilled processes were an important part of the wool industry around Moretonhampstead from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Some limited wool processing carried on until the mid twentieth century.
Spinning was often carried out by women in farming households across the surrounding villages. The term “spinster” originally referred to someone whose occupation was spinning wool into yarn. Serge makers would collect prepared wool and take it to local spinners before bringing the yarn back to Moretonhampstead, where it could be woven into cloth.
Flemish weavers cottages, just in front of the church on the left, known as Egypt Court
Weaving was usually carried out by professional weavers working in small workshops or in their own homes. The sound of looms would once have been familiar in the town and nearby villages such as Doccombe, where families like the Rebold sisters were still known for their weaving as late as the 1960s.
Doccombe Weavers - the Rebold sisters, 1962
Weavers shop, Fore Street c.1950,“Gypsy
Pegasus Crafts”
1955 advert for Dartmoor Weavers