Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, Linum usitatissimum, in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climate. Textiles made from flax are known in Western countries as linen, and are traditionally used for bed sheets, underclothes, and table linen. Its oil is known as linseed oil. In addition to referring to the plant itself, the word "flax" may refer to the unspun fibers of the flax plant. The plant species is known only as a cultivated plant, and appears to have been domesticated just once from the wild species Linum bienne, called pale flax. The plants called "flax" in New Zealand are, by contrast, members of the genus Phormium.
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Friockheim is a village in Angus, Scotland dating from 1814. It lies between the towns of Arbroath, Brechin, Forfar and Montrose.
Irish linen is the brand name given to linen produced in Ireland. Linen is cloth woven from, or yarn spun from the flax fibre, which was grown in Ireland for many years before advanced agricultural methods and more suitable climate led to the concentration of quality flax cultivation in northern Europe. Since about the 1950s to 1960s the flax fibre for Irish linen yarn has been, almost exclusively, imported from France, Belgium and the Netherlands. It is bought by spinners who produce yarn and this, in turn, is sold to weavers who produce fabric. Irish linen spinning has now virtually ceased, yarns being imported from places such as the Eastern part of the European Union and China.
Glamis is a small village in Angus, Scotland, located four miles south of Kirriemuir and five miles southwest of Forfar. It is the location of Glamis Castle, the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
Matthew Murray was an English steam engine and machine tool manufacturer, who designed and built the first commercially viable steam locomotive, the twin cylinder Salamanca in 1812. He was an innovative designer in many fields, including steam engines, machine tools and machinery for the textile industry.
Kinnettles is located in Angus, a Council Area in the northeast of Scotland. The Parish is bounded on the north and east by Forfar, on the southeast and south by Inverarity and the southwest and northwest by Glamis. The centre of the Parish is dominated by the oblong Brigton Hill (164m) whose steepest slopes descend to the Kerbet Water. The Kerbet valley is well wooded and contains two small hamlets, Kirkton and Douglastown. The only other sizeable group of dwellings is at Ingliston on the flatter area to the northwest of the A94 Forfar to Glamis road. The northern boundary is the "Great Drain", now known as the Dean Water. Strathmore Estates constructed this, from Forfar Loch to the Kerbet, in the 18th century and thus helped to drain this previously boggy area. In addition it provided a transportation route for marl from the Loch to the Estate.
John Marshall was a British businessman and politician from Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
Flax mills are mills which process flax. The earliest mills were developed for spinning yarn for the linen industry.
John Kendrew (1748-1800), a Darlington Quaker, is best known for having invented the first effective process for the mechanical spinning of flax. With Thomas Porthouse, a local clockmaker, he built a working machine and together in 1787 they patented the design in both England and Scotland. They licensed the technology to others, and subsequently each built their own mill — Kendrew's being near Haughton le Skerne on the NE outskirts of Darlington. After Kendrew's death, Porthouse took out his own patent, as did others and most flax mills were technological descendants of the Kendrew/Porthouse design.
Libeco is a Belgian textile company which manufactures and distributes linen and linen products. The company grew out of the merger of Libeco and Lagae on 2 June 1997. The head office is located in Meulebeke in a region of Flanders, Belgium, which is known for its flax culture and textile industry.
Oherville is a farming commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France.
James Kay was a British inventor who developed a successful wet spinning process for flax in 1824, helping industrialise linen spinning in the British Isles. Thus allowing it to be a great commercial success and gain a forefront position in the world. His process is still used to spin fine linen yarns, although mainly in Russia and China.
Heckling is the last of three steps in dressing flax, or preparing the fibers to be spun. It splits and straightens the flax fibers, as well as removes the fibrous core and impurities. Flax is pulled through heckling combs, which parts the locked fibers and makes them straight, clean, and ready to spin. After heckling and spinning, flax is ready to be woven into linen.
Scutching is a step in the processing of cotton or the dressing of flax or hemp in preparation for spinning. The scutching process separates the impurities from the raw material, such as the seeds from raw cotton or the straw and woody stem from flax fibers. Scutching can be done by hand or by a machine known as a scutcher. Hand scutching of flax is done with a wooden scutching knife and a small iron scraper. The end products of scutching flax are the long finer flax fibers called line, short coarser fibers called tow, and waste woody matter called shives.
Shaw Mills is a hamlet in the civil parish of Bishop Thornton, Shaw Mills and Warsill, in Nidderdale in the Harrogate district, North Yorkshire, England. It lies in the valley of Thornton Beck, a tributary of the River Nidd, 6 miles (10 km) north west of Harrogate.
The Bocholt textile museum is a museum in Bocholt, a city in the north-west of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, part of the district Borken. It is situated 4 km south of the border with the Netherlands. The museum opened in 1989 as one of the eight locations of the LWL Industrial Museum: it is an Anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
De Museumfabriek is a museum in Enschede, Twente, in the Netherlands. The new museum is located partly in a renovated Jannink textile factory, in reference to Enschede's textile history, and partly in an adjourning new building designed by the Amsterdam-based firm SeARCH. The project architect was Bjarne Mastenbroek. It is an Anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
Andrew Mulholland, was a northern Irish cotton and linen manufacturer.
Barburgh Mill is a hamlet composed of an old lint mill, later extended as a woollen mill and associated buildings which lies north of Auldgirth on the A76 on the route to Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire, Closeburn Parish, in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. Its original nucleus was the old mill with associated buildings, the smithy, toll house and the miller's and workers dwellings. The site features the A76 that runs nearby, the River Nith and the Lake Burn that once powered the mill via a lade before joining the Nith. The area is famous for its association with the Covenanters. A Roman fortlet stood opposite the mill and a Roman road is thought to have run through Nithsdale at this point.
