Rare Breed Sheep

The seed for starting this spinning supplies business came from the generous gift of a rare breed fleece, an Oxford Down, from The Chiltern Open Air Museum in Buckinghamshire. "Rare breed, what was that all about?" we wondered.

This led us to the Rare Breed Survival Trust which is a leading conservation charity working to restore Britain's native livestock. They have a "Watchlist" which contains all native breeds of cattle, goats, horses, pigs, poultry and sheep. Britain probably has the largest range of native sheep breeds in the world and they are an integral part of our history. For recognition by the Trust of any animal, the breed must be an original or a native breed, of which at least one parent breed is believed to be extinct.

Our prime interest is the main endangered list which is separated into the five categories, detailed below. Please click on the individual sheep names for further details of each breed.

At the same time as discovering the RBST we were also made aware by Richard Storer of Baylhams Farm that The British Wool Marketing Board does not have much interest in coloured fleece (fleece that is not cream) as you can not dye it and use it for carpet making, which is what the majority of fleece in Britain is used for today. Indeed, many coloured fleeces are left to rot by farmers, as to the farmer they have little commercial value.

Our aim therefore, is to promote the use of rare breed fleece for knitting, spinning, dyeing and felting and whatever other use you can think of! We also consider it important and interesting to have information about the breeds concerned and in that respect we have provided an information sheet about each sheep breed along with their potential uses. These can can be found in the Rare Breed section of our Shop and are also available as free A4 coloured sheets with each purchase.

We aim over the next year to have our own spun yarn, dyed rovings and natural rovings for you to create something wonderful from what is essentially part of Britain's heritage along with a range of our own designs. In some instances we are also able to provide sheepskin rugs from known breeders in the New Forest.

We hope you will enjoy reading about the sheep and look forward to hearing about what you have created. Perhaps we could start a Rare Breeds Gallery to show off the items you have made? Please do send us your photographs.

Suzanne & David