Woolly collaboration brings Yorkshire brands together

Two successful Yorkshire brands have come together to launch a unique range of felted wool products made entirely in Yorkshire.

Clapham-based countrywear clothing brand, Glencroft, and Ilkley-based felted wool company, Little Beau Sheep, have come together to launch a limited-edition laundry ball and felted soap.

The partnership came about when Edward Sexton who owns Glencroft, met up with Sarah Turner, managing director of Little Beau Sheep at the Great Yorkshire Show last year.

Having got chatting about their shared love of all things Yorkshire and British Wool, they soon realised there was an opportunity to work together.

Cue the launch of the Clapdale Wool laundry ball and felted soap collection, made entirely from the fleece of sheep from seven farms within a five-mile radius of Glencroft in the conservation village of Clapham, Yorkshire Dales.

Edward of Glencroft, commented: “This range is really the triumph of good old-fashioned Yorkshire chat! Sarah and I are both licensees of British Wool so have known each other for some time. But as soon as we got talking at the Great Yorkshire Show, we knew there was a great opportunity to work together on something uniquely traceable and Yorkshire-themed.”

It was during their conversation that Edward mentioned Glencroft’s Clapdale Wool Project, which saw the countrywear brand make a unique Yorkshire wool with funding from the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund.

The Clapdale yarn was made from the fleece sheep on the farms surrounding Glencroft and much of the wool was processed into hand-knit yarn as well as a range of limited-edition Clapdale jumpers and hats.

However, Edward had a hundred kilos or so of ‘wool tops’ - the wool produced after carding, before spinning and processing – which Edward was keeping aside for re-sale. But Edward and Sarah had conjured up a plan to put it to much better use.

“Edward supplied me with the Clapdale wool tops which contained the wool of three different Yorkshire breeds, the Dalesbred, Texel and Mule, and I got to work processing and felting it into a range of products, including our famous laundry balls,” said Sarah, pictured, of Little Beau Sheep.

The reuseable laundry balls are now available in a co-branded three-pack retailing at £25.00.

Sarah, added: “The laundry dryer balls which are very popular as a chemical free alternative to fabric softener and we were also able to make some lanolin enriched soaps, wrapped in a pure Clapdale Wool coat.”

The Clapdale Wool Felted Soap retails at £16.00 - the perfect sustainable, Yorkshire-made gift.

This is the tale of a bit of Yorkshire ingenuity which has seen Glencroft and Little Beau Sheep come together to create a mini-circular economy for their Yorkshire based products – with wool sheared from Yorkshire sheep, in Yorkshire, processed in Yorkshire, made with soap from Yorkshire, and felted in Yorkshire by Little Beau Sheep.