Month: October 2017

Categories
History local history

The Saxton Spindler

Close of up woman with spindle and niddy noddy.

In Europe the handspindle was the only tool for spinning yarn until the early Renaissance, when the spinning wheel appeared. Simple spindles produced all the thread, yarns and cordage for household use, for commerce and for war, for at least 9,000 years. The handspindle met all these human needs: clothing, household linens, uniforms for the […]

Categories
antique textiles convicts Knitting York

“Some Knitted Nightcaps of the Debtors”

Clifford's Tower, York. CREDIT: Nat Hunt

1821 Thursday, 18th October [York] Went over the bridge at 11 ¼. Went shopping with my aunt… Walked with my aunt around the castle yard (she wanted some knitted nightcaps of the debtors)…” [Anne Lister’s Diary, p. 175 ‘The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister” (Virago, ed. Helena Whitbread)].   Reading Anne Lister’s diaries was […]