Ashgrove Herringbone

Ashgrove is a 2/2 twill whose threading runs up to the fourth shaft and then walks straight back down again. Every six ends the diagonal turns, and the chevron you can see in the cloth is nothing more than that reversal made visible. Nobody prints it and nobody dyes it in: shift the point of the threading and the chevron moves with it.

The reversal has a practical consequence a plain twill does not offer. A continuous diagonal pulls the cloth off-square as it is tensioned, which is why long lengths of straight twill skew on the roll. Reversing the direction every six ends balances that pull against itself, so Ashgrove hangs true in a drop of three metres and does not need to be fought into square on the cutting table.

We weave it from two undyed fleeces rather than dyed yarn. The moss tone is Masham, the oat is Bluefaced Leicester, and the slight irregularity between batches is the flock rather than a fault. At 480 gsm and eight ends to the centimetre it is a firm, dense cloth — heavy enough for a wing chair, and it takes a hard rub without the twill lines flattening.

Specify it for seating, curtaining with weight, or throws. It is not a garment cloth; at this weight it will not tailor.