Beulah Speckled Face Sheep

The Beulah Speckled Face sheep is also known as the Eppynt Hill and Beulah Speckled Face sheep and is named after the hilly area in south-central Wales where these sheep originate and are still kept today.  They are fairly common in Wales but not very well known outside of Wales.  The actual origins of the breed are a mystery.  It might be a true native breed as there is no mention of cross breeding in any literature.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board the breed was established in the UK during the 20th century.

There are not many decent detailed photos of these sheep available on the Internet without having to pay extortionate amounts of money for them, but that is not an argument I want to get into here.

The Beulah Speckled Face sheep, at the time of writing, is in the "Other UK Native Breeds" category, according to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.  This means that there are over 3000 sheep of this breed registered with the relevant breed society.

The Beulah Speckled Face is bigger than a true mountain sheep.  It has long head, speckled face and legs, which are free from wool. Ewes and most rams don't have horns.  The ewes are good mothers and produce good milk and are often crossed with downland rams to produce early prime lambs.

They produce a medium size fleece of 1.5 to 2.5 kg that can vary greatly from fine to coarse.  Finer fleece are great for knitwear and coarse fleece are best left for carpets and household textiles that need to withstand a lot of wear.  The larger, heavier fleece tend to the be at the coarse end of the range.  The staple length is generally 3-5 inches (7.5-12.5cm).  The fleece is white and shouldn't have any dark fibres. 

This fleece can be carded and spun woollen style or combed and spun worsted style.  It is generally quite a white wool, certainly brighter and less creamy than others that I have tried so far.  I've not dyed any myself but information available tells me that you get clean colours when you dye it.  

Yarns spun from fine fleece are perfect for everyday items and if you are spinning a coarse fleece then those yarns are best for household textiles.  

I bought this breed in as 530g of pre-washed fleece, which was the only option available to me at the time.  When it arrived I could see it was full of dark coloured kemp and fine dark hairs, non of which should be there, but seeing as I would be combing it I hoped that the majority would be removed during the preparation process.

After I had combed it I was left with 339g of hand combed top, most of the dark kemp and very short hairs had been removed but there was still a fair amount of long dark hairs that were ruining it so armed with a pair of tweezers and good light I sat and picked out as many as I could and this left with me 318g of top to spin.  There are still some hairs in there and some dirt and grease too, it's not been washed to my standard.

My finished yarn is quite soft to the touch of the hand and a nice clean white.  I lost a number of grams of weight during the washing process when the rest of the dirt and grease came out.  I have a total of 299g/795m.  My knitted piece for the project took 33g/94m so I have some left to do whatever with.