Trefriw Woollen Mill: Days gone by

 

Above: an early photo of the Trefriw Woollen Mill, showing the fast running River Crafnant turning the water wheel and thus powering the machinery. It was originally a fulling mill or "pandy". The river water was also used to wash the wool.

An interesting illustration of an early fulling mill from Georg Andreas Böckler's Theatrum Machinarum Novum, 1661, can be found on Wikipedia's entry on "pandy". According to Wikipedia, the earliest fulling mill or pandy in Trefriw dates back to the fifteenth century, fulling being the process which cleans and thickens the wool. The article goes on to say a new pandy was built in 1820 which still carries the name "Vale of Conwy Woollen Mill". A water-powered fulling mill replaced the previous cottage-industry type process, but it took Thomas Williams' purchase of the mill to see any serious development of the industry. The original buildings are sited behind the modern 1970s premises.

Wikipedia says: "Fulling mills, from medieval times onwards, were often water powered. In these, the cloth was beaten with wooden hammers, known as fulling stocks. There were two kinds of fulling stocks, but in both cases the machinery was operated by cams on the shaft of a waterwheel or on a tappet wheel, which lifted the hammer".

                                                 

An illustration depicting Scottish women on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulling_mill shows how fulling was carried out in 1770 - with their feet. Other words for fulling are "tucking" or "walking" ("waulking" in Scotland), from which are derived the names given to the worker - fuller, tucker, or walker.

Back in Roman times, fulling involved having slaves standing ankle deep in human urine or "wash" for the ammonium salts to cleanse the cloth. In medieval times a clayey material called fuller's earth or impure hydrous aluminium silicate was used, probably in conjunction with "wash". Later, soap was used. After the fibres had been matted together for strength the wool was rinsed with water. The water mill where this took place was known as a fulling mill, a walk mill or a tuck mill, or, in Wales, a pandy. They are known in one form or another from Persia in the tenth century and became widespread during the thirteenth century. Cervantes' Don Quixote had a run-in with the fulling process when six fulling mill hammers thumped several pieces of cloth all night, to his consternation.

 

The photo above was taken about 1880 and includes owner Thomas Williams (bottom right). Thomas Williams came from Pentrefoelas and bought the mill in 1859, by which time it had been in operation for over thirty years.

 

It is still owned and run by the same family.

 

Above: Thomas Williams in later life.

 

The mill and staff in the 1920s.