LAKE DISTRICT LIFE

Have a ball in Kendal

Knit wits will be more than welcome when this Lakeland town hosts a new event called The Wool Gathering. Mike Glover spins a Shepherdess Alison O’Neill, who is opening her farm for the event

t is difficult to find a welcome for a new series of events to newspaper or magazine celebrate Kendal’s associations with these days that doesn’t wool is that no-one has done it Ifeature the joys of , before. or a celebrity wearing tweed, Called Kendal Wool Gathering, it or a Scandanavian TV detective will mix demonstrations, fun wearing a distinctive woolly jumper. activities and displays, all connected When the media were camped to the cloth on which the town’s outside the Lindo wing of St Mary’s wealth was built. Hospital in Paddington, West The Gathering runs from Friday London, for the ‘Great Kate Wait’ October 11 until Sunday, October 13, before the birth of Prince George, the weekend before National Wool American TV anchor-woman Natalie Week, an increasingly popular Morales was photographed knitting. national campaign. Kendal Town There is a boom in wool-related Council’s motto, clearly stated on its hobbies, with traditions crafts like coat of arms, is Pannus Mihi Panis. spinning and enjoying a This Latin pun is usually translated revival. The natural source and as ‘Wool is My Bread’. There are sustainability of the cloth made from other clues on the coat of arms: the fleeces, whether from sheep or quartered shield shows bale hooks imported animals like alpacas, has used for lifting heavy bales of wool; caught the zeitgeist. and teasels which were used to brush And there is one town this side of up the nap on the finished cloth. the Pennines whose relationship Almost all of the Auld Grey Town’s Fun with the fleeces on a Lakeland farm with wool goes back many centuries. assets can be traced back to the wool (Museum of Lakeland Life) So the only surprise in the immediate trade, whether it was the fleeces

40 LANCASHIRE LIFE October 2013 lancashirelife.co.uk themselves or the making of wool or Yorkshire mills, and coal and iron fleecy felt products from them. back again. There are the dozens of yards Even Abbot Hall Art Gallery and 5 facts where cottage industries of combers, Brewery Arts Centre were spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, kick-started by family fortunes made shearers, tailors and drapers in banks, which only existed because The Campaign for Wool is a global community of sheep farmers, retailers, flourished over the centuries and of the wool trade. designers, manufacturers and wool lovers these alleyways now give Kendal its ‘Our aim is to establish an annual presided over by royal patron, The Prince unique shopping experience. event which celebrates Kendal’s wool of Wales. There are the fine buildings heritage, attracts tourists and created with the money from the increase commercial opportunities,’ We complain about Europe, but by the end wool trade - for instance, Kendal said organiser Adrian Swenson. of the 18th century England had 300 laws Museum is housed in a converted The team behind the Kendal pertaining to the sheep industry. wool auction warehouse. Even initiative, including Mr Swenson, a In the Middle Ages the Spanish regarded empty spaces, like Tenterfell, betray wool spinner with a specialist Merino sheep as prized gifts and they the town’s woollen past. After interest in Textile Heritage, and rarely left the country. dyeing, fulling and washing, the well-known shepherdess Alison cloth was hung on the hooks of a O’Neill, have already recruited In the 1870s, it took the Australians just tenter frame to dry. The hooks held support and encouragement from K ten years to double sheep numbers to the cloth to stretch it and keep its Village, Tourism, Kendal 41,000,000 finally surpassing the UK as width. Town Council, South Lakeland number one wool supplier. Kendal’s prosperity can truly said District Council, the Rough Fell Wool is now being used more and more to have been kept on tenterhooks. Sheep Association, and British Wool for home insulation and it only takes a There is the Lancaster Canal which Marketing Board’s Campaign for fraction of the energy to produce was built to carry the wool produce Wool. compared to many man-made materials. down to the Lancashire and English Heritage is among lancashirelife.co.uk LANCASHIRE LIFE October 2013 41 Sheep gathered for shearing (Museum of Lakeland Life) organisations planning to take part, Wool Gathering Purler of a weekend as are Town End Alpacas from organiser Adrian Crosthwaite, Lakeland Arts Trust, Swenson The Gathering will launch on Friday, October 11, Kendal College and Museum, Kendal with an open afternoon at Alison’s farm on the hill, Shacklabank (LA10 5EL fror satnav users), Quaker , Williams Wools near , where she will take visitors on a shop, Cumbria Wool Carpets and farm walk, pointing out how traditional farming local craft groups and textile artists. methods have benefitted the environment. This ‘We want this to be a fun event, will be followed by tea and cake in the barn. but one that also reminds visitors The main hub for Saturday and Sunday’s and residents alike the part that Wool events will be at K Village’s Netherfield Place, played in making Kendal what it is where sheep and alpacas will be on show. Stands today,’ added Mr Swenson. and stalls representing all aspects of commercial wool products, including carpets, looms, spinning Get yourself to Kendal and have wheels and associated crafts. a ball. A wool trail of support events and displays will be held at Kendal Town Hall, the Museum of Lakeland Life, Kendal Museum, Quaker Tapestry A hard day shearing and other participating retailers, and a guided (Museum of Lakeland Life) wool walk will take in sites in the town where the wool trade flourished. Linked fun events in the town, like a knitting blitz and other have-a-go activities in the shopping precincts are being organised by Williams Wools, of Kirkland. Artist Sandra Parker, who specialises in sheep portraits will have a pop-up gallery in Elephant Yard. Kendal Homespun, a local social enterprise, is joining in the weekend events by launching its new base at Nether Hall, between K Village and the parish church. English Heritage is getting involved by promoting its newly reopened Great Stott Bobbin Mill at Lakeside, Windermere, at the Kendal event. For more updates see: www.kendalwoolgathering.co.uk or contact Adrian Swenson on 07739-409538 or at [email protected].

42 LANCASHIRE LIFE October 2013 lancashirelife.co.uk