Great Yorkshire Show features Northern England Fibreshed Members

Three members of the Northern England Fibreshed were showcasing wool from the region at the Great Yorkshire Show last month.

This year, the 166th event hosted the ‘Wensleydale Sheep: A Handcrafted History’ exhibition, which tells the story, past and present, of the Wensleydale sheep breed. It is a travelling exhibition that features artworks by 40 textile artists throughout the UK, all of whom have made use of the breed's wool.

The Wensleydale breed traces its origins back to a single sire born in 1839 in the Yorkshire Dales. The breed was as yet unnamed when it was first given its own class at the Great Yorkshire Show in 1876, after which it was formally named and recognised as the Wensleydale.

The artists' pieces for the exhibition were all crafted using native, rare breed Wensleydale sheep wool, and included hand-woven tapestries, knitted lace garments, felted 'wool paintings,' and reupholstered furniture. Alongside the artworks, historical photographs of the sheep were displayed, with some Wensleydale sheep themselves meeting and greeting visitors as they walked around the exhibition, which was located next to the Ariat GYS Stage.

Every day of the Great Yorkshire Show a variety of woolcraft demonstrations took place in the exhibition space, including a range of heritage woolcrafts - from spinning and peg loom weaving to bobbin lace and felting, designed to show visitors a variety of ways to utilise wool.

Overall, the exhibition's visit to the Great Yorkshire Show was a brilliant success, attracting media attention from the likes of The Farmers Guardian and BBC Radio 4's Farming Today. It has been an exciting opportunity to educate the public about the link between a living, breathing animal and the textiles that can be created using their wool, about rural heritage and the woolcrafts that humans have engaged in for thousands of years and of course about the rare and beautiful Wensleydale breed of sheep. (Jodi Shadford)