Oxford Down Sheep

The Oxford Down sheep, also referred to simply as "Oxford" was developed during the 1830's when Cotswold rams were crossed with Southdown and Hampshire Down ewes.  Over the next 50 years or so the breed stabilised and, given that most of the flocks were around the town of Witney in Oxfordshire, the name "Oxford Down" was adopted. In fact the improved Southdown was cross bred with other native breeds in the downland counties and the improved Southdown bloodlines runs through all other Downs breeds, making the Southdown the grand ancestor of all of the other Downs breeds: Dorset Down, Hampshire Down, Oxford, Shropshire and Suffolk.

The Oxford sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 5: Minorty (1500-3000) registered breeding ewes.  

Oxfords are found throughout the UK but particularly in the Midlands and the Cotswolds.

The Oxford is the largest and heaviest of the British downs breeds weighing in on average at 147kg for a ram and 91kg for a ewe and this makes it the second largest of all of the British breeds, right behind the Lincoln Longwool.  It has a dark chocolate brown face and legs with wool on the forelock and cheeks and also most of the legs.  Both sexes are polled (hornless). 

They produce a good size heavy but open fleece of 2.5-4.5kg in weight with a staple length of 2-5 inches (5-12.5cm).  The fleece dense with short blocky staples that may be hard to distinguish from one another.  There is no hair or kemp in the fleece from this breed. The fleece should be white and free from dark fibres.

Shorter fleeces can be carded, longer ones will want to be flicked or combed.  Keep the draft light and open and the twist moderate to maintain the loft and springy character of the wool.  The wool is "chalky" but does take dye nicely but the colours won't be lustrous but neither will they be flat.  Has enough crimp to be nicely elastic and it doesn't felt very well.  

Yarns spun from Oxford fleece are great for socks, mittens, hats, sweaters and the finer fleeces will be great for next-to-skin items.

I have bought this breed in as 100g of pre-washed fleece so all I have to do is comb it and spin it.

I got 78g of hand combed top

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and is quite white.  I have 70g/175m of sport weight yarn.  My knitted piece for the project took 22g/50m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Leicester Longwool Sheep

The Leicester Longwool has been around since the 1790's having being improved from the now extinct Dishley Leicesters that were developed by Robert Bakewell from the local landrace breeds.  He was the man who introduced the idea of "a breeding season" and keeping rams and ewes separate to allow for selective breeding of desirable traits and also the idea of the breed assocation for each breed of sheep.  Robert's Dishley Leicesters died out soon after his death in 1795.  In turn, the Leicester Longwool breed is the pre-cursor and direct ancestor of both the Border Leicester and the Bluefaced Leicester.

The Leicester Longwool sheep used to be the most common breed in England but now it is critically endangered, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 3: Vulnerable (500-900) registered breeding ewes. They are very rare these days but are still most popular in the East Midlands, where the breed originates from.

The Leicester Longwool is a large, hornless sheep with wool on the crown.  It has a white face and legs, a slightly Roman nose and the nostrils are dark and it grows a heavy even fleece.  They produce a large size fleece that weighs 2.3kg-8.2kg with staples that are 10-14 inches long (25.5cm-35.5cm).  Sometimes they are sheared twice a year so that the staple length would be more manageable.  

The fleece is dense, silky and lustrous with a soft handle.  The locks hang individually with a well defined crimp or wave over the entire lock.  Coloured patches in a white fleece are not acceptable and the white fleece needs to be protected from this genetic mechanism.  Coloured fleece are acceptable but they must be coloured all over and not coloured patches on a white fleece.  Fleece should be wholly white or wholly coloured and the colours are white, black or "English Blue" which is a multi-shaded shaded grey

This fleece is usually too long to be cards but can be spun from teased locks, picked, flicked or combed.  Keep your hands well separated when spinning and when drafting hold it very lightly and keep re-arranging the mass of fibre to keep it flowing evenly and smoothly.  White fleece takes dye clearly and the high lustre makes colours pop.  The English Blue can also be dyed.

Yarns spun from Leicester Longwool fleece will be strong and is good for lace patterns as it gives excellent stitch definition.  Might not be suitable for next-to-skin use but a shawl or wrap would be perfect.  

I had a lot of trouble locating any fleece or fibre from this breed due to its rarity and I finally found some and bought this breed in as 450g of raw fleece but I ended up getting it from someone selling it on Ebay, which can always be a bit hit and miss.  There weren't many photos and they weren't the best quality, obviously taken with a mobile phone without much care, but there were a couple of photos of the sheep the fleece had come from and I was happy to accept that it was a coloured Leicester Longwool sheep so I took a punt and hoped for the best.

Parts of the fleece was very dirty and sticky with grease

Matted and dry, brittle parts of the fleece.

I wasn't totally happy with the quality of the fleece when it arrived and I inspected it with great care to see what the issue was.  There was a few clumps that were just a matted/felted mess and then were was parts that were very dry and brittle, almost like old paper, and just touching it to gently tease the locks apart without any pulling made it just break into tiny bits.  It basically disintegrated in my hands.  I washed everything else, which was 329g out of the original 450g. I did contact the seller, who took no responsibility for the condition of the fleece whatsoever and claimed it was freshly sheared, although its a bit early in the year for shearing, and blamed me for the damaged fleece.

Interesting colours!

I combed the fleece when it was dry and I got some very interesting and very differently coloured hand combed nests that weighed a total of 153g.  Whilst it would have been fun to spin this up and see what the end yarn looked like I decided to put it through my blending hackle to even out the colour and produce an even coloured yarn.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and only slightly prickly, as many longwools are due to the fibre type, but I do like the colour now that it's even.  It's more of a dense yarn as opposed to being light and bouncy.  This is obviously the English Blue and there is 125g/195m.  My knitted piece for the project only took 50g/78m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Hebridean Sheep

The Hebridean Sheep is a small black sheep that looks slightly different now than it use to do about 200 years ago.  Originally these sheep may have been descendants of a primitive sheep that Vikings bought  to the Hebrides a millennium ago, that is both the Inner and Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland.  The original strain had white faces and legs, usually had two horns, rarely had four and had more range of colours including blue-grey, brown, black and russet. The original strain died out when crofters moved to raising "improved" breeds such as the Cheviot and the Scottish Blackface.  Thankfully during the late 1800's a handful of flocks were bought to England to become "lawn ornaments" on estates owned by the aristocracy.  They may have been bred with the Black Welsh Mountain sheep because the Hebridean sheep today have black faces, black legs and the fleece is always black, which lightens to grey or reddish brown on the tips with both age and exposure to the sun and the multi-horned trait runs much more strongly throughout the breed.  Both sexes have horns, although some ewes are occasionally polled.

A two-horned variety of Hebridean

A four-horned variety of the Hebridean

The Hebridean sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes, having recently progressed from category 5.  

Hebridean Sheep are now found throughout the UK and are popular with smallholders and often used in conservation grazing schemes because they can thrive on what would be considered to be poor grazing for other breeds and are good at scrub control as they have a strong preference for browsing and they would need more than hedging, which they will eat, to prevent them from escaping.  They are small, fine boned and hardy and can outwinter severe conditions and can tolerate wet weather extremely well.  They have strong black hooves with few foot problems.  The face and legs are usually free from wool.  Fully grown ewes weigh about 40kg and the rams are proportionately heavier.

They produce a black fleece of 1.5kg-2.5kg that is dual coated that has a soft insulating undercoat with a coarser rain shedding top layer and the sheep just give themselves a quick shake to rid themselves of the rain.  Some fleece have a noticeable demarcation between the coats whilst others are not so clear and is more of a gradual shift between the two but are still easy to separate into fibre types.  The fleece are popular with hand spinners who appreciate the subtle mix of colours and textures within the fleece. The staple length is 2-8 inches (5-20cm).  The locks are triangular and lustrous and may contain hair or kemp, especially on the hindquarter area of the fleece.

Preparation of the fleece will depend on the length, the type of dual coat and whether you want to separate out the different fibres or spin them together.  Spinning can be a bit of a challenge.  It has a luscious dark colour and a lot of durability.  As for dyes, no point trying as the wool is so dark that you won't see it. Use yarns as appropriate as it depends on what and how they are spun to how soft they are but if you have left the waterproof outercoat in your yarn that waterproof quality will be in your yarn so would be great for outerwear.

 

I had a small issue with when getting this fleece because I ordered a large bag of 250g of washed fleece, knowing that it was a dual coated fleece, and only 100g was sent so I had to wait for more fleece to be prepared and then they sent me 300g as compensation when I was only expecting the missing 150g. Whilst I waited for it to arrive, I combed the 100g that they had sent.  It was quite black with a lot of white hairs and I didn't get a lot from it and I forgot to weigh it.

When the replacement arrived it was a completely different colour and texture.  This replacement was dark brown and felt different to the touch, and I forgot to take photos of the replacement fleece before starting work on it.  300g of fleece became 85g of soft fibre.

See how different the two lots are.  That is a prime example of how fleece can differ from animal to animal never-mind breed to breed.  I did try to remove more of the white hair from the first batch but I was left with so little soft wool and it was a different colour that I decided to just use this brown-y one instead and threw the other stuff in the bin.

My finished yarn is of good quality and soft to the touch of the hand and a very rich dark chocolate brown, much darker than it looks in the light box.  My knitted piece for the project took 29g/48m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Brecknock Hill Cheviot Sheep

There are three distinct Cheviot sheep breeds here in the UK.  The South Country Cheviot, The North Country Cheviot and the Brecknock Hill Cheviot.  All three varieties share distinctive looks: they have wool-free white faces, upright and perky ears, Roman noses, dark nostrils, and their eyes are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner. All three then have their own distinguishing features and characteristics and they are different in size and whether they have horns or not.  Each have their own blog post so be sure to click on links within the posts to navigate between the three.

I don't think I need to say that this is a ram, but I will, just in case you've not got your glasses on or you think that this is a cow with udders!

The Brecknock Hill Cheviot is a breed of Cheviot that has been developed in Wales but I am finding conflicting information on this breed.  A reference book that I have from the British Wool Marketing Board states that this breed is descended from the early border Cheviot and established 400 years ago (the 17th century) in the Brecon Beacons but only recognised in the mid 19th century when they were further developed.  Wikipedia claims that they have their origins from 400 years ago in Wales and it also claims that they are the result of Cheviots being crossed with Welsh Mountain and Leicester breeds.  However, another reference book that I have and the information I can find from the Breed Association's website states that it was introduced into the Brecknockshire area in the 1800's (19th century) and adapted itself to the wet uplands and hills of the Brecon Beacons and developed a new strain of Cheviots.  

The Breed Association's website does state that crosses and terminal sires are often used in the production of lamb for the meat markets but also that pure breeding needs to occur to keep the breed alive and produce ewes for cross breeding.  I'm not a farmer and I do my best to try to digest and understand this cross breeding information but I don't really understand it in all honesty.  I live on a housing estate on the outskirts of Birmingham and my interest is more in the fleece and fibre and the yarns I can make and obviously I do care about rare breed sheep and their survival as I kind of have a vested interest in keeping them from becoming extinct.

The Brecknock Hill Cheviot are a hardy, adaptable hill sheep weighing in at around 60kg for a ewe and rams are around 90kg and can be found in Mid-Wales, around the Brecon Beacons.  They are white-faced with no wool on the face or on the legs below the knee, Roman noses, dark nostrils, and their eyes are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner..  The Wool Marketing Board reference book states that they have a ruff of wool behind erect ears and the white springy wool can sometimes contain kemp, whereas the Breed Association website states that there is no ruff or wool behind the ears.  They are generally polled although sometimes rams have horns.   At the time of writing they are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: Other UK Native Breeds (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.

The fleece is dense, with crisp, lustrous wool.  The fleece weigh 1.5kg-2.5kg with a staple length of 2.4-4 inches (6.5-10cm) and a three dimensional crimp.  They have a finer fibre profile but they may have some kemp and one of my reference books states that it comes in a full range of natural colours but I can't find this information elsewhere nor can I find any photos of coloured sheep of this breed, this fact does not seem to be mentioned at all, which is a concern for me.

The fleece is described as "chalky" and whilst the wool dyes wells it does not have the brilliance of the longwools.  If you have a short fleece it can be carded but usually it is long enough to be flicked or combed.  It is good for socks, sweaters and the like.

I have bought this breed in as 100g of coloured pre-washed fleece and this is why I am so concerned now at this write up stage that I can't find anything about a coloured version other than a mention in the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook.  However, the fleece was sourced from the someone in the Brecon Beacons which is a good start and they claim that the sheep they keep are Coloured Brecknock Hill Cheviots.

I got 70g of hand combed top from the fleece and I then had to blend a couple of the bumps together to even the colour out.

My finished yarn is of good quality to the touch of the hand, its quite soft and there is 70g/159m.  My knitted piece for the project only took 46g/105m so I have a small amount left to do whatever with.

Rough Fell Sheep

The Rough Fell sheep is part of the Blackfaced Mountain family and is one of the largest of the mountain sheep and was bred in the middle ages from a Blackfaced sheep and other local breeds which are now extinct.  It was first mentioned in 1848.

Top: Rough Fell Ram with impressive horns
Bottom: Rough Fell Ewes also have horns but smaller

The Rough Fell sheep, as the name implies, lives on the Fells, which are uncultivated high grounds traditionally used for common grazing by multiple famers.  The majority of the breed are to be found within a 7-10 mile radius of the Fells in Cumbria and Cumbria is the northwestern most county in England with Scotland on its north edge and the Irish Sea on the western edge. 

Being confined to such a small geographical area causes concern for the future of the breed as during the UK's 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak 35% of the Rough Fell sheep were culled in a bid to contain the spread of the disease.  There were only 18,000 breeding ewes at the start of the outbreak so to lose 35% of them was devastating to the breed and numbers have not recovered much, even after 20 years.  At the time of writing, the Rough Fell are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" which means that there are more than 3000 registered breeding ewes.

The area in which they live has a very harsh climate and is very wet, receiving 60 to 100 inches of rain per year and during winter it is blanketed by heavy snowfalls and the Rough Fell sheep has developed  an exceptionally strong and heavy fleece to cope with the conditions.  The breed is primarily raised for meat and the fibre is the coarsest of the Blackface Mountain family and is often used to stuff mattresses as the outercoat resembles horsehair.

The Rough Fell is a large build sheep with a blackface that has large white markings on the faces, dominating the snout to make them look like they are wearing a black mask.  The legs are white with black markings and both sexes have horns, although the ewes are much smaller than the impressive curly horns of the ram.  

They produce a good size fleece of 2-3.5kg in weight with staples that are 6-12 inches long (15-30cm) that contains hair and kemp that protects them against wet weather, along with finer wool to keep them warm. This is a breed that produces wool that is definitely not for worn next to skin wear.  The fleece is white and the tips are likely to be darker the the main part of the fleece.  

This fleece is double-coated and so however you prepare it it is likely to separate the coats and the easiest way to do that is to just hold the base of the lock and pull on the hairy tips and you will get a lot more hair than you will get wool.  You can spin the hair to make a rope type yarn to make household textiles or you could use it as garden twine.  The wool is likely to have kemp in it, which wont take up any dye and if you dye both the wool and the hair they will most likely look different shades.  You can spin straight from the lock

Yarns spun from Rough Fell fleece are definitely suited to household items, rugs and upholstery and not for any kind of clothing.  

I have bought this breed in as 100g of washed fleece and it is really hairy and you can see some kemp in it too.

As you can see from the photos, it is not the nicest stuff to play with.

I only got 33g of combed top from the 100g of fleece as I tried my best to remove as much of the coarsest hair to leave as much wool as I could.

My finished yarn is of fairly rough quality to the touch of the hand and you can feel the prickly hair and kemp but because I removed a lot of the hair it's not as nasty as it might otherwise have been.  I got 31g/74m of sport weight yarn.  My knitted piece for the project took 20g/48m so I have a small amount left to do whatever with.

Mermaid - Badger Face Welsh Mountain - Torddu

Further to my post of 20th February about the Badger Face Welsh Mountain Sheep - Torddu, this post is about what I did with the "colourful" parts of the washed fleece and the small amount of hand combed fibre that I got from my purchase of just 50g of washed fleece.

The 50g of washed fleece

The 25g of combed top I got and then this top with the colourful parts from the other fleece

Obviously when I post about something that I've done, it is always after I have done it and sometimes I post in stages as I do it and other times I wait until I've completed the whole project and sometimes projects physically "cross-over" in real life, so whilst I'm waiting for something to dry I'm starting work on something else etc. In that post of 20th February I didn't mention that I had already dyed the colourful parts of the fibre when I had, in fact, dyed it on 18th February. I kept that information for this post.  I dyed it using Greener Shades Dyes in Coral Reef Aqua at a dye depth of 0.75%, so 3/4 of its usual strength, because I wanted a slightly lighter shade than usual.

I already had an idea what I wanted to do with it before I dyed it, which is partly why I dyed it that colour, plus the fact it was already slightly tinged blue from the raddle paint or whatever that the fleece had been marked with.  I wanted to make an oceanic yarn so I sorted out some ingredients in blue and green to add to it.

Top row: Colbalt Ramie, Gooseberry Merino, Peacock Angelina
Middle row: Caiprinha Trilobal Nylon, Torddu, Chlorophyll Silk Noil
Botton row: Ireland Silk Noil, Caiprinha Hemp, Harmony Merino

It was blended on 27th February and it looks really pretty like this.

It got left in a bag for a little while until I started spinning it on 16th April and I was having to thin out the small clumps of silk noil as I spun.

My finished yarn is a 2ply double knit weight and I have 112g/210m.  The final fibre count is 65.5% Badger Face Welsh Mountain Torddu, 27% Merino, 2.5% Ramie, 1.5% Trilobal Nylon (Firestar), 1.5% Silk Noil, 1% Hemp, 1% Angelina