The letter reads:
2020 marks the 125th Anniversary of the founding of The National Trust. They’re one of the UK’s largest charities and care for many historic buildings, places, and areas of countryside.
One of their founders was a woman called Octavia Hill. Throughout her life she campaigned for social reform, and worked to improve the lives of people in the ever growing urban parts of the country. She believed that accessing nature was vital for good well being.
She campaigned to ensure that public rights of way remained open and also wanted to stop the destruction of the old buildings that form part of our cultural heritage. She was born in 1838, the granddaughter of Dr Thomas Southwood Smith. A leading early Victorian public health campaigner, he spent his life working to give the urban poor access to better housing. Her parents were also social reformers and were followers of Robert Owen (who was born in Newtown near to where I live, more links to him in the further references). When her fathers business failed her mother took charge of the household, and encouraged all her daughters to take jobs. Octavia ended up running a workroom at a Christian Socialist cooperative managed by her mother. Octavia organised middy meals for her workers, visited them when they were sick, and took them on nature study walks around London Commons.
As she grew older her socialist connections grew, she developed friendships with the pioneering Christian Socialist minister Frederick Denison Maurice, radical thinker John Ruskin and the anticapitalist critic and author Charles Kingsley. Ruskin purchased properties in her name, and Octavia ran them as a friendly landlord. She still expected the rent to be paid, but was willing to take a lower return on the investment in order to improve and maintain the building (very unusual amongst urban landlords at that time). As time went on she stepped outside her own property interests and joined a campaign to save Swiss Cottage Fields in London from development. Even though that campaign failed, later campaigns to save Parliament Hill Fields, Vauxhall Park and Hill Fields were successful. In 1895 she became one of the founders of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. The Trusts aim- “so that green spaces could ‘be kept for the enjoyment, refreshment, and rest of those who have no country house’.”
In 1895 the Trust acquired it’s first piece of land, Dinas Oleu in Barmouth, a section of the Welsh coast where we walk regularly. It was donated by Mrs Fanny Talbot, a widow who had inherited land and money on the death of her husband. She was a friend of Octavia Hill, believed in her vision of making sure that open spaces remained accessible to all. From these 4.5 acres the Trust has become Europe’s largest conservation charity, and the views are spectacular. Looking out over the 58,000 acres in Snowdonia owned by the Trust and some of the 196 miles of Welsh coastline also in their care.
Another woman, Beatrix Potter, was another major donor to the Trust, and worked alongside them in her lifetime. When she died she left much of her Lake District estate to the Trust, Beatrix Potter featured as the inspiration for the January 2016 club fibre.
Octavia did much good in her lifetime, but by modern standards she would still be regarded as conservative in her politics. She believed that social inequality was best tackled by private enterprise and charity rather than by the government. She was against the welfare state, free school meals, council housing, and a universal old-age pension.
Your colour inspiration this time comes from a paint company who used to work with the National Trust; Farrow & Ball took colours that had been found during the restoration of old houses and turned them in to a modern paint range, but one that could be used sympathetically in old houses. Their collaboration with the Trust has now ended, but the inspiring range of paint colours remains, and has carried on expanding. You can find the list of 7 paint colours that match your fibre in the Further Reading section.
I’m going to end the letter this month with a quote from Octavia, which is still perfect for our modern world.
‘We all want quiet. We all want beauty … we all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.’
After looking at the links and the list of colours she details I am expecting it to be quite colourful, in a toned down kind of way. I've made two colour palettes below of the colours she has listed that are used in this fibre, one shows the names and the other shows them arranged closer together so its easier to see how they might work as a fibre.
From the spoilers chat she has revealed that its not the softest blend, does contain some kemp, which was falling out during packing and contains some BFL to make it a little more hardwearing for more high-wear items such as mittens. Once again, as its a colourful fibre, spin from the fold if you want to keep the colours more defined or spin from the end for a more muddied blended effect.
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