Dalesbred Sheep

The Dalesbred sheep was developed in the 20th century by crossing Swaledales and Scottish Blackface breeds.

The Dalesbred sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.   They are usually found in the Pennines across Lancashire and Yorkshire and 95% of the breed is confined to that relatively small area of the UK which poses a risk to the breed should there ever be another outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease.  They are well known in the English Lake District, along with Swaledale, Rough Fell and Herdwick breeds of sheep and are noted for their ability to thrive in exposed locations.  Individual sheep tend to be hefted to a specific part of the mountain or fell and will remain there, often where they were born, without the need for fencing.

The Dalesbred has a blackface that is free from wool and has distinctive white marks above and to each side of the nostrils and a grey nose.  The legs are black and white and free from wool. Both sexes have horns, with the rams having spiral horns and ewes having much smaller horns.  

They produce a medium sized dual coated fleece of 1.5-3kg with a staple that is 5-8 inches (12.5-20.75cm) that contains hair that protects them from the rain and an undercoat that is softer and keeps them warm.  The fleece should be white but often contains black and grey fibres too.   

This fleece can be spun from teased locks, it can be carded but this is not easy with this fleece or it can be combed. Combing will separate the longer, coarser, hairy fibres from the shorter, finer, softer undercoat but it might not do this cleanly due to overlapping lengths of both types of fibres.   Should take dye well.

Yarns spun from Dalesbred fleece are definitely suited to household items, rugs and upholstery and not for any kind of clothing except maybe a lined jacket.  

I have bought this breed in as a 100g bag of pre-washed fleece that just needs to be prepared and spun.  My sample is a mix of both white and the darker fibres but this could make an interesting yarn.

Combing left me with just 48g of hand combed top in an array of interesting shades as I removed as much of the coarse hair as I could whilst still leaving me enough to knit the sampler.  The darker fibres were much shorter than the lighter fibres so that when I dizzed this off my combs the lighter fibres came off first and the darkest fibres last so that each hand combed nest was a kind of "mini-gradient" in itself.  I decided that it would be pointless to try and blend this into one shade using my blending hackle and instead chose to spin creatively.

I divided the nests into two piles and spun the first single by spinning each nest from lightest to darkest fibres and then when I spun the second single I reversed it and spun each nest from darkest to lightest.  I figured that this way, when I plied them together, the colours would kind of barber-pole throughout the yarn and this would give the yarn a more overall even shade rather than have defined light and dark stripes or patches.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and actually feels softer than the Exmoor Horn I just spun but you can feel the prickly hair and I do like the colour which is a pale beige-y pale grey. I have 48g/87m of sport weight yarn.  My knitted piece for the project took 27g/49m so I have some left to do whatever with.  It has knitted up a little bit stripey and its not an even colour all over, but I am not surprised in all honesty.

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.

Swaledale Sheep

On with the next breed for my British Breeds project and its the turn of the Swaledale, named after the valley in which the breed originated in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  The Swaledale belongs to the Blackfaced Mountain category of sheep.

The Swaledale 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 and a quick search reveals that there are over 1,200 pedigree flocks of Swaledale sheep within the UK alone, so there are good numbers of these sheep around.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board the breed was established in the UK during the 20th century.  They are used to produce cross breed sheep known as Mashams and North Country Mules.  The Masham is produced by breeding a Teeswater ram (or sometimes a Wensleydale ram) to either a Dalesbred or a Swaledale ewe (and sometimes a Rough Fell ewe is used).  Ewe lambs from these crossings are then raised as breeding ewes in commercial flocks due to improved qualities.  North Country Mules are produced by using a Bluefaced Leicester ram with a ewe suited to the locality of the flock, usually one of the Blackfaced Mountain breeds and the ewes produced are then cross-bred again with rams of larger meat breeds such as Texel or Suffolk.

Swaledales are usually found in the more mountainous regions of the UK but particularly up in the Yorkshire Dales, County Durham and the pennine fells of Cumbria.  They are well known in the English Lake District, along with Dalesbred, Rough Fell and Herdwick breeds of sheep.  They are related to both the Scottish Blackface and Rough Fell and are noted for their ability to thrive in exposed locations, although the specific origins of the breed are unknown.

The Swaledale is a medium build sheep with a blackface, white muzzle and white circles around the eyes and the legs are free of wool.  Both sexes grow curled horns, although the males horns grow much larger.  Individual sheep tend to be hefted to a specific part of the mountain or fell and will remain there, often where they were born, without the need for fencing.

They produce a medium size fleece that contains hair and kemp that protects them against wet weather, along with finer wool to keep them warm. It has the largest proportion of finer wool out of the three most similar breeds, Swaledale, Herdwick and Rough Fell.  This is a breed that produces wool that is definitely not for worn next to skin wear.  The fleece is white to off-white but if you leave the kemp and dark fibres in then yarn produced will appear grey, this is what I have for my sample.  Depending on the source of information, the staple length is between 4 and 8 inches long (10-20.5 cm long) and can be anything from 1.6 to 3 kilos in weight. 

This fleece can be spun from teased locks, it can be carded or combed using Viking combs.  During combing the fibres will pull off in sequence of length as always, which means that you will first pull off the longest fibres, then the medium length and the kemp will come off last so you can spin them like that and have and everchanging yarn that may barber-pole during plying or you could take 3 lengths at a time and stagger them so you have each type of fibre in your hands at all times and thereby re-combining them as you spin as long as you keep your grip light else they will separate again.  Carding will keep the fibres mixed.

Yarns spun from Swaledale fleece are definitely suited to household items and upholstery and not for any kind of clothing except maybe a lined jacket.  

I have bought this breed in as pre-prepared fibre in a box containing 50g each of four British Breeds and you can see the dark fibres and the kemp in this photo.  I also had a 25g sample that I got with another pack and the small sample was slightly different in quality so I stretched it out to the same length as the 50g and spun them together at the same time.

Spun to Sport Weight my yarn is 74g/185m

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and you can feel the prickly hair and kemp but I do like the colour.  My knitted piece for the project only took 20g/50m so I have some left to do whatever with.