On the Trail of Welsh Wool - at Elvet Woollen Mill

Nestled in a cosy dip alongside a fast flowing river in the sleepy Welsh village Cynwyl Elfed, Daniel Harris of The London Cloth Co. is restoring a neglected and run down woollen mill.

This is my second visit to Elvet Woollen Mill, this time to see the launch of a beautiful traditional Welsh blanket collaboration with interior designer Carina Harford.

Carina Harford and Daniel Harris discuss wool related business.

On arrival, the music is already pumping and the electric disco ball spinning, sending pink beams of light onto hundred year old looms. A sign in the corner says “No one parties like a weaver”. Daniel is an energetic man, plucked from a different century and placed into 2025 to revive forgotten weaving skills. He stalks around the mill, hollering through rickety windows and through floorboards to welcome guests, who are ushered upstairs to admire 19th century mechanical marvels and munch on snacks from vintage crockery.

No-one parties like a weaver, at Elvet Woolen Mill.

The mill is full to the brim- with people, fabric, yarn, knick knacks, thingamabobs, and relics. Mostly, things are carefully arranged, or at the least, artfully piled into a corner. By Daniels admission, the mill is a work in progress. Until recently, damp, cluttered, and non-functional. A huge amount of work has gone in to restore it to its current condition, and there is still a long way to go.

Daniel is steadily clearing out relics of the past. A selection of kettles stand guard at the window.

Importantly however, the mill works. On pulling a selection of leavers, a great clattering commences and shuttles begin flying at 40mph between strands of the finest British wool, and a pattern begins to emerge on a virgin strip of fabric.

Carina and Emma, of Harford House inspect their new blankets, hot off the loom.

I’m investigating Welsh wool, and initially had sought to follow wool from Welsh sheep, to Welsh processing, to Welsh product, and was led to this fantastic place. My inital mission is proving a challenge, perhaps impossible, but I aim to document this small revival of a traditional Welsh industry.

If you ask someone from another continent what they know about Wales, if they say anything at all, it’s likely to be about sheep.

So where is our wool industry?

For now, I’m glad to have found this sparkling gem hidden in a quiet West Wales village, where manufacturing of a traditional Welsh product has come roaring back to life under the skilled hands of a weaving master.