Wensleydale Sheep: A Handcrafted History

21st January – 16th February 2025

An exhibition by The Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Breeders’ Association

This exhibition has been put together by a small group of passionate individuals within the Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Breeders’ Association and will showcase the work of 40 textile artists from throughout the UK, with every piece crafted using native, rare breed Wensleydale sheep wool. This exhibition is the first of its kind in promoting the unique Wensleydale Longwool fleece and the versatile range of textile crafts for which it can be used. It is a celebration of rural history, heritage wool crafts and the increasingly popular and sustainable practice of using British wool in textiles and will help to highlight the Wensleydale breed as a luxury wool producer.

It will also bring to public attention the wide range of uses of the wool through age-old textile crafts, keeping them alive for the benefit of future generations and encouraging sustainable practices in textile production in a world dominated by a limited use, throwaway culture. The exhibited pieces will vary widely, from hand-woven tapestries and knitted lace garments, to felted wool ‘paintings’ and re-upholstered furniture. Each piece is unique and almost every piece has been created especially for the exhibition, which is set to travel for two years, concluding at the end of 2026.

The exhibition will introduce the history of the breed and will also include historic photographs from the Association’s archive.

The Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Breeders’ Association were incredibly grateful to receive a grant from the Yorkshire Agricultural Society to help fund the exhibition.

To learn more about the Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Breeders’ Association please visit their website.

The exhibition is currently on view in London at the Handweavers Studio and Gallery, and will travel on to other venues in 2025 and 2026.

WORKSHOPS

Create your own piece of Wensleydale wool art, with one of our two creative workshops.

The workshops will be run by Janet Phillips, who is based in Wensleydale and has her own business, ‘Janet and Bluebell’ through which she runs workshops and sells wool crafting kits and materials.

Janet has spent a lifetime teaching fine art, textiles and developing her own creative work. Along the way, she has had lots of exciting experiences from teaching Fine Art at schools, universities and textiles at the YMCA and YWCA in the UK and Hong Kong. Whist living in Hong Kong, she sold drawings and a range of stationary, which then led to her business growing to become a gift distribution business with over 200 retail outlets, including in China.

After twenty years, she returned to the UK to farm in North Staffordshire. Her woollen business, The Threshing Barn, retailed spinning, weaving, knitting and textile supplies from her craft workshop. Woollen fibre came from her sheep, which included Wensleydales. After another twenty years, she retired from farming and moved to Wensleydale.