A talk by Ann Taylor and Ian Mackintosh on 14 October 2025.
Report by Stan Morrissey.
Our members were treated to a fascinating account of how the mills of the Stroud valleys developed a range of textiles that became known worldwide. Ann Taylor and Ian Mackintosh, from the Stroudwater Textile Trust, not only recounted the history of this industry but showed many examples of cloth produced on the original machinery.
This was the first of this season’s talks and the hall was packed with some 90 attendees.
Gloucestershire was home to many textile mills, but Stroud was the only industrialised centre. The first fulling mill is recorded as far back as 1170. Monks were running a mill at Winchcombe in 1212 and by 1274 they populated the Stroud Valley. In 1680, the valley was home to some 120 mills and the area referred to as “land of the clothiers”. In just a half mile of the river were four operating mills. Stroud and Nailsworth, formerly minor settlements, grew into sizeable towns. In 1790 the Thames and Severn Canal and, later, the Stroudwater Canal opened, greatly aiding transport of the mill products to the rest of the country.
The quality of the Stroud cloth led to some very big contracts. From 1848 to 1960, cloth for Post Office uniforms was made in the valley. Cloth for army tents, which required a different nap on each side, also came from there. At one point cloth costing 45/- a yard was exported to the French, and a quality coat was made and presented to King George III. In contrast, another big seller was shoddy, which was recycled cloth and therefore cheap. A shirt in shoddy cost a week’s wages when a quality one cost a year’s. When the Prince Regent set up his own court in defiance of his father, he had uniforms made in indigo blue from – guess where? And a significant export destination for red and blue cloth was America, which did not have the dyeing capability. In 1815 a purchase by the East India Company of £40k worth of cloth was recorded, a phenomenal amount though we do not know what it was used for.
The process for making cloth in those days was not that different to today though obviously less mechanised. First the raw wool was “carded”, its fibres drawn straight ready for spinning. This was done by children; no-one was idle in this industry. First in cottages then in the mill, wool was spun, twisted, stretched and drawn out into thread. It was then woven into broadcloth on handlooms, in three-metre-wide strips. These were taken to the fulling mill where a series of hammers pounded the cloth, which both shrank it and made it denser. The constant noise of these was said to echo throughout the valley.
The cloth was then “dressed” using teazel heads. Not the ditch teazels you see growing freely which are too soft, but fulling teazels which are far stiffer and springy. Samples handed around clearly demonstrated this difference. A hand frame of teazel heads was used to comb by hand, raising the cloth fibres which were then cut off by hand. If you think that sounds tedious – yes it was! Cloth of varying “nap” was created, from the coarser clothing to very fine billiard table covering. The cloth was then dyed and hung in the open to dry, suspended from frames on tenterhooks (hence the expression). A popular dye colour was red, made from cochineal beetles (yes, our soldiers took beetles to war). Another was indigo (blue), a plant dye. Arundel Mill alone had twelve dying vats for indigo.
As the industrial revolution advanced, complex machinery was introduced. I think most of us heard in school about the spinning jenny, Arkwright’s mule and the flying shuttle. No room here, so look them up. Machines were not the bogeymen we hear of, the mills provided local employment to process material that was previously sent out of the area. Ebley Mill employed over 100 people, Stanley Mill had 500, clearly the major employers in an otherwise agricultural district.
So West Country cloth (much of it from Stroud) became known worldwide. But good times never last. Fashions changed and worsteds and tweeds became popular. The mills responded by producing different cloths, but the market was shrinking due to cheaper imports and the readier availability of synthetics, which had the huge advantage of being easily washable. Some mills closed in WW2 but the area still provided Queen Elizabeth’s wedding dress in 1947, and even robes for the Pope. Nowadays some mills remain as historical centres and are still made to work on occasion and are open to visitors. Look out for them all up the Valley.
Is your surname Weaver, Fuller, Dyer, Webster (Weaver), Tucker, Napier or Taylor? Then your ancestor was probably in the textile trade.
We are grateful to Ann and Ian for a fascinating session with so many handling samples passed around. See the Trust's website for more: 
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