Suffolk Sheep

The Suffolk sheep is part of the "Downs family" of sheep.  They were developed in the Bury St Edmunds area by crossing Southdown rams with original pre-extinction Norfolk Horn ewes and were originally referred to as "Southdown Norfolks" but this was finally changed some 60 years after Arthur Young, author of the 1797 book called "General View of Agriculture in the County of Suffolk", wrote "These ought to be called the Suffolk breed, the mutton has superior texture, flavour, quantity and colour of gravy". Actually, they were not known by the name of Suffolk until around 1859.  They were recognised as a pure breed in 1810.  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 Suffolk sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  Breed numbers in the UK in the 1980's were around 500,000 but by 2020 this had dropped to around 14,000. Suffolks are usually found across the entirety of the UK and around the world and are a leading breed in the production of meat.  

The Suffolk is a large build sheep with a black head, black legs, black ears and both sexes are polled (hornless). The legs should be woolled to the knees and hocks.

They produce a good size fleece of 1.8kg-3.5kg in weight  with a staple length of 2-3.5 inches (5-9cm).  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 Suffolk fleece are great for socks, mittens, hats, sweaters and the finer fleeces will be great for next-to-skin items.

**There is a statement in the Fleece & Fibre Sourcebook (published 2011) about there being a processed fibre sold as "Grey Suffolk" that demonstrates very few of the qualities and characteristics of Suffolk wool and they traced it back as far as they could but could not determine exactly what it was.  

I too had purchased this "Grey Suffolk" in a multi-British breed pack from one of my usual suppliers (who I have since found out gets a lot of their fibres from a larger supplier that I use) when I first started collecting fleece and pre-prepared fibre of various British breeds.  After reading this comment just before I started spinning, it stopped me in my tracks, and I decided not to spin this "Grey Suffolk" and I got in touch with the Suffolk Breed Society who confirmed to me that there is no such thing as a Grey Suffolk.  All Suffolk sheep are white.  

I also contacted the larger supplier that I use, who only sell Suffolk in this grey type, to inform them that there is no such thing as a Grey Suffolk and to ask them if they know what it actually is and to challenge them politely on the description as it is not a true representation of the breed.  It took a bit of time but they got back to me and told me that it is 80% Suffolk Wool/20% Half-bred Wool and they have now changed their description to state this.  I am surprised that there is as much as 80% Suffolk wool in the blend though as it really is quite grey but at least I have been useful in making sure that the Suffolk breeds stops being mis-represented, from this supplier at least. They still don't sell Suffolk in the natural white form though.

The is "Grey Suffolk", it contains kemp and other stuff that is not in a Suffolk fleece

So, I had to find a new source of Suffolk fleece or pre-prepared fibre. I found some being sold on Ebay by a young-ish female farmer (in her 20's) and so I bought and paid for 300g of raw Suffolk fleece plus delivery charge. I won't name and shame her because I'm a grown up but I will explain what happened because I still can't quite believe it. What arrived was just 50g of raw fleece.  I politely queried her error and was met with a tirade of abuse and attitude so I politely pointed out her legal responsibilities under the Long Distance Selling Regulations that she entered into when putting her sheep fleece up for sale on the internet and was met with a refusal to correct her error as that would mean she would be out of pocket as she would have to pay for delivery costs again and also a refusal to refund me for the 250g of fleece that she didn't send.  She couldn't see that she was committing theft/fraud so I had to put my case to Ebay/Paypal and I won, in part due to her mother getting involved and apologising profusely for her daughters behaviour, WOW, that was the unexpected part!

Shall we get on to the fleece then?  The 50g of fleece that she had sent me was not all that great to be honest and certainly did not live up to the boastfulness of the ribbon and award-winning descriptions of the sheep, flock and young farmer/shepherdess that I had read about. I think winning a few ribbons had gone to her head and caused some kind of disillusionment or God complex.

50g of dirty fleece with lots of black hairs

The same washed fleece with lots of black hairs

Just washing this fleece dropped the weight from 50g to 35g and I had to comb it yet so knowing there wouldn't be enough I managed to find some washed fleece for sale with the lady I've been getting quite a lot of the smaller amounts of raw, washed and pre-prepared breeds from.  I don't know why I didn't check her shop first, maybe I did and she hadn't got any in at the time.  Her stock is always changing because she gets it direct from the farmer and prepares it herself so it depends when the shearers can get round to the farm and when she can wash and dry it etc.

50g of washed fleece, very few black hairs

Sourcing this breed has been a bit of a nightmare.  Firstly the "Grey Suffolk" issue, then the "I've won ribbons so I'm a God and better than you" farmer and now, thankfully, I have been saved on my third attempt at bringing this breed in.

After combing both lots of the fleece separately, I got 25g of mediocre quality hand combed top from the first lot and 35g of lovely quality hand combed top from the second lot.  I could see that they were different shades of white and so I spun them separately and then plied them together.

Left: Mediocre wool from the farmer with the "God complex"
Right: Lovely wool from a regular supplier of mine

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and you can feel the slight coarseness caused by the poorer quality of the first bit of fleece I bought in but overall its not too bad and I have 53g/102m. My knitted piece for the project took 19g/37m so I have some left to do whatever with.