The second of two posts presenting photographs of the linen looms at Ballydugan Weaver’s House in the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, Northern Ireland.This post deals with the ‘damask loom’, the previous post with the ‘plain loom’. . Ballydugan Weaver’s House is a reconstruction of an 1850s weaver’s cottage from Ballydugan, County Down. It currently … Continue reading The Ballydugan Looms, part 2.
The first of two posts presenting photographs of the linen looms at Ballydugan Weaver’s House in the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, Northern Ireland.This post deals with the ‘plain loom’, the second post with the ‘damask loom’. . Ballydugan Weaver’s House is a reconstruction of an 1850s weaver’s cottage from Ballydugan, County Down. It currently … Continue reading The Ballydugan Looms, part 1.
A post about the two linen looms at Ballydugan Weaver’s House in the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum at Cultra, Northern Ireland. I visited in April 2023 to look at details of loom construction to inform my own loom build later in the year. I am grateful to the weavers Roisin & Joanne for making … Continue reading The Ballydugan Looms
Like most old words it has been spelled in various ways, including huccaback, hukkaback, hukaback, hugaback, hag-a-bag, hagabag, huggaback and huck-a-back, before becoming standardised as huckaback, sometimes shortened to just huck. Usually singular, occasionally plural, as in the weavers’ draft for ‘hukabacks’ in the Thomas Jackson manuscript from the mid 1700’s.1 * The Oxford English … Continue reading Huckaback / Piggyback
‘Truly an old craft standing by itself, alone in this England of ours.‘ This post is a transcript of a newspaper article about the linen industry in North & South Lopham, Norfolk, first published in the East Anglian Daily Times on 23rd January 1894. A reprinted version of the article is preserved in the Rita … Continue reading Hand Loom Weaving (1894)
In this post I share some illustrations and extracts from a rare eighteenth century book about flax and hemp cultivation, processing and weaving. The book’s full title is: A Treatise concerning the Manner of Fallowing of Ground, Raising of Grass-Seeds, and Training of Lint and Hemp, for the increase and improvement of Linnen-Manufactories in Scotland, … Continue reading “Farming in Scotland”
(December 2022) This is a post about my trip in July to view the collection of Lopham linen in Norfolk Museums, with photographs and descriptions of rare examples of handwoven huckaback cloth made around 1900. I am grateful to Ruth Battersby Tooke, senior curator of Costume and Textiles at Norfolk Museums Service, and Rachel Kidd, … Continue reading Lopham Linen
(November 2022) Concering the locations of Ralph Watson and Thomas Jackson, and the distribution of linen manufacture in North Yorkshire. The first image above is a map of North Yorkshire pinned to my studio wall. The black pin at the top right, near the mouth of the River Tees, locates the tiny village of Wilton, … Continue reading The linen manufacture of North Yorkshire, once upon a time.
(September 2022) Concerning a nineteenth century loom and the recollections of a hemp worker in the French Alps. Ecomusée du Clos Parchet The star exhibit of the Ecomusée du Clos Parchet is the building itself, situated on a mountainside in the Haute Savoie, built in 1815 and now preserved as a typical example of a … Continue reading Hemp weaving at the Ecomusée du Clos Parchet
(August 2022) The following is a transcription of the documentary film Bäuerliche Leinenweberei 4: Herstellen von Leinwand, with my translation of the original German commentary presented alongside stills from the corresponding scenes in the film. The film is the fourth in a series recording the re-enactment of traditional linen weaving in the town of Dickenshied … Continue reading Rural Linen Weaving in Germany: Part 4: Weaving the Cloth