Raising or 'rowing'

Drawing of a Medieval bench end from Somerset showing a cloth worker with finishing tools including shears, knife and teasel rack. The rolls of cloth have holes in the edges made by tenterhooks.

Raising the nap on the woollen cloth was the next step to producing a finished product; in Witney this was also known as 'rowing'. It involved brushing the surface of the cloth all over to remove any imperfections and give it a uniform appearance. For centuries, this was done by brushing the cloth with the dried heads of the teasel plant, a type of thistle head which has many flexible, barbed spikes that effectively brush out wool fibres without being so rigid as to tear the fabric. Several teasels were set together into a wooden handle - these tools were known as cards. Wooden paddles set with wire teeth were also used for nap raising [1]. Again it was often the tuckers who would carry this out on behalf of the weavers. They also sheared off the nap with scissors or shears to make the cloth smooth.

Apart from fulling stocks, rowing was one of the first processes to be mechanised in the Witney blanket industry. The Witney Blanket Weavers' Company purchased a horse powered 'rowing machine' or gig mill in 1782 for the use of its members. One of the entries in the accounts lists 'Ale, for getting the Horse from under the Mill wheel'! [2]. The machine was used until 1818, when it was sold because the number of independent master weavers was declining due to the rise of the larger companies.

Clare Sumner