COME AND MEET
THE SHEEP
Without sheep, there's no fleeces and no wool fibres or yarn - so the sheep are at the heart of Woolplay and its endeavours. Sheep are great - they improve the pasture with their grazing and what comes out the other end and then convert that grass every year into an amazing fleece and if given the opportunity a new life.
We have a massive sheep heritage in this country. We have more sheep breeds than anywhere else in the world, many of which have been exported around the world. Our country's wealth in the Middle Ages was largely created from sheep and their fleeces. This led onto us developing spinning and weaving skills that moved to a new level with the industrial revolution.
Sadly all of this went into decline during the 20th century as new synthetic fibres became available and fashion tastes changed. But over the last decade or so, for a whole host of reasons, there has been something of a resurgence. Wool is sustainable, British wool processed by mills in the UK has a much smaller carbon footprint, there are mental health benefits from making (and there are so many wool based crafts) and being more connected with the land.
In a very small way, we hope that Woolplay can play its part in supporting and promoting our fabulous British sheep breeds, particularly the rare breeds, to crafters who want to pursue woolly crafts
The Leicester Longwools
Now a very rare breed, Leicester Longwool sheep were hugely important in the history of livestock development. In the 18th century
Robert Bakewell took the existing Leicester breed and by crossing it with the Lincoln and Ryeland breeds was able to create the new Leicester Longwool breed.
The rams are often used with commercial ewes both in the UK and worldwide. The ewes are good mothers and thankfully, given their size (they are big!), they are a placid and biddable sheep, except when they're not!
I bought my first Leicester Longwools in 2021 and added a ram in 2023. We breed to support the breed as well as filling the freezer but our main focus are the fleeces which are often 3kg in weight, have long curly locks up to 10" long and are delicously lustrous.
The Ryelands
Ryeland sheep are one of the oldest sheep breeds in the UK and originate from around the Ross on Wye area. During the Middle Ages, Ryeland wool became the measure against which the quality of other wools was assessed. Ryelands were used also to develop a number of other sheep breeds during the 18th and 19th centuries. They went into serious decline in the 20th century, and were a rare breed. However in recent years their numbers have increased as they are a popular smallholder breed. Ryelands come in two flavours - white and coloured.
We have bred a Ryeland ram with our Leicester Longwool ewes and produced sheep with lovely fleeces. We now have two Ryeland ewes that we plan to cross breed with our Leicester Longwool ram in 2024.
In the meantime, we have bought both white and coloured Ryeland fleeces from a local sheep breeder to process into both rovings and spun yarn
The others!
The other fleeces we source come from a nearby mixed flock of some Ryeland cross, some Welsh/Ryeland cross, some Zwartble cross, some Jacob.
The focus of the flock is producing fleeces especially suited to woolly crafts and they are very much loved by their owner, when they're not incurring vet bills!