MORE ABOUT THE

TREFRIW WOOLLEN MILL

We are very pleased to introduce the Trefriw Woollen Mill in Trefriw (between Conwy and Betws-Y-Coed) as one of our many potential stopping points on the BUSYBUS North Wales sightseeing day tour. Below you will find some brief information about this wonderful place but please ask for further information if required when making your booking.

At Trefriw Woollen Mills in the Snowdonia National Park, North Wales we manufacture Welsh double weave (tapestry) bedspreads (carthenni) and tweeds.

We carry out all the processes from raw wool to bedcovers, i.e. blending, carding, spinning, doubling, dyeing, warping and weaving. We generate our own electricity using water turbines. Thomas Williams bought the mill in 1859. His descendants still own and operate it.

Our website has been recently updated not only to provide you with an on-line shopping service which allows you to purchase our beautiful bedspreads from the comfort of your own home, but also to provide you with useful information about the Mill, its history, location and opening times etc.

One Before the Industrial Revolution, spinning and weaving was carried out by hand at home. The woven cloth was taken to a fulling mill or "pandy" (in Welsh) to be washed and pounded before being stretched out on tenters in the field to dry.

Trefriw Woollen Mills was such a pandy.  Its position on the banks of the river Crafnant allowed the exploitation of the soft, fast flowing water to wash the wool and cloth, and drive the water wheels which powered the fulling hammers.

The late 18th and early 19th centuries brought in looms with flying shuttles, spinning mules and carding engines, all taking power from the water wheels. 

This revolutionised cloth production, and the scattered cottage industry moved into the centralised mill situation.  In about 1900 the water wheels at Trefriw were dismantled and a hydro-electric scheme was installed. Updated in 1952 with a dam, half a mile upstream, this water supply fuels our electricity generation today.

Welsh tapestry ( technically plain double weave ) bedspreads have been woven in Wales for over a hundred years and were handed down as heirlooms. No-one knows exactly how they originated but similar geometrical weaves were popular in North America in the first half of the 19th century.

Our theory is that this type of weave was once produced all over Britain, but because Wales was geographically isolated, fashions and changes were slower to reach here.  As the Industrial Revolution progressed, woollen manufactures elsewhere stopped weaving double cloth and concentrated on weaving single cloths which could be run out more quickly and economically on the newer, faster looms.

The beauty of double weave is that because two cloths are woven simultaneously one on top of the other, clear cut geometric motifs are formed where they interchange. The bedspreads are reversible with sometimes a surprising contrast between one side and the other. 

BUSYBUS looks forward to being part of your Holiday Memories!!

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