Herringbone
Ashgrove Herringbone
A 2/2 twill threaded to a point and reversed every six ends, in undyed moss and oat wool.…
gsm480
cm150
Cloth woven to order · est. 1963
Cloth begins as a diagram.
Every fabric here is specified the way a weaver writes it — a threading, a tie-up, a treadling. The cloth on this page is not a photograph. It is that notation, woven live in your browser.
On the loom: Ashgrove Herringbone — Herringbone
Undyed British wool — Masham and Bluefaced Leicester · 8 ends/cm
Move across the cloth
The notation
Four blocks decide everything.
A weaver never draws the cloth. They write which shaft carries each warp end, which shafts each treadle lifts, and which treadle is pressed for each pick. The interlacement — the thing you actually see — falls out of those three. So does the pattern: houndstooth is not a picture anyone drew, it is what a 2/2 twill does when the warp and weft are both banded four dark, four light.
Threading
Top block. One mark per warp end, on the shaft that carries it.
Tie-up
Top right. Which shafts each treadle raises.
Treadling
Right column. The order the treadles are pressed, pick by pick.
Drawdown
The field. Never written by hand — it is computed from the other three.
The shed
Four looms, and nobody left who builds the parts.
The mill runs four Dobcross box looms built between 1948 and 1961. They beat up more gently than a modern rapier loom, which is why the twill lines stay round; spares stopped being made decades ago, so we turn them ourselves. Everything in the book is woven on these four.
4
Dobcross box looms, 1948–1961
150 cm
Widest cloth off the beam
40 m
Minimum for a bespoke warp
The cloth book
All fabrics
Stock warps, on the shelf.
2/2 twill
Pennine Houndstooth
Four indigo ends, four oat, in both warp and weft over a plain 2/2 twill. The houndstooth is…
gsm340
cm150
Plain weave
Calder Plain
Madder warp, oat weft, one over one under. The firmest binding there is, and a shot colour that…
gsm215
cm140
Basket weave
Selby Basket
Plain weave with the ends and picks paired: a 2/2 hopsack that drapes where tabby would stand up.
gsm300
cm145
5-end satin
Ribble Satin
A five-end satin with the binding points scattered so no two touch. Nothing interrupts the light, which is…
gsm265
cm138
3/1 warp-faced twill
Wharfe Drill
A 3/1 warp-faced twill: three warp ends up to every one down, so the indigo warp owns the…
gsm385
cm152
The mill floor
Someone ties every one of these up by hand.
Head weaver
Nell Fairhurst
22 years at the mill
Draws every new cloth on paper before it goes near a loom, and can hear a broken end from the…
Loom technician
Idris Bowen
31 years at the mill
Keeps four Dobcross looms from the 1950s running, and machines the parts nobody makes any more.
Dyer and colourist
Marguerite Okonjo
9 years at the mill
Runs the indigo and madder vats, and matches to standard under three different light sources before a lot is signed…
Finisher
Tom Rievaulx
14 years at the mill
Scours, mills and crops. Decides how much a wool cloth is allowed to close up before it stops being the…
Cuttings
Cloth has to be handled to be judged.
We send cuttings of anything in the book, free, anywhere. Tell us the end use and we will put in the two or three you did not ask for but should see.
Request cuttings