Chain

Wool, from fleece to jumper

A fleece is shorn once a year. Before it becomes a jumper it is graded, washed, combed or carded, spun, dyed, knitted and finished, usually by a different business at each step, often in a different county. Most of the middle of the chain sits in West Yorkshire.

1 Farms
2 Collection and merchants
3 Scouring
4 Combing
5 Spinning
6 Dyeing and finishing
7 Weaving and knitting
8 Making up
9 Brands and customers

Farms

Loop · shearing, the fleece rolled and packed

Sheep are shorn in late spring and summer.

Traded: fleece by breed and type
Who: about 2,400 farms listed one by one in this directory, a small share of the whole

Fleece is rolled, packed in wool sheets and sent to a collection centre or merchant. Breed decides most of what the wool can become: fine, soft wool for knitwear; long, lustrous wool for worsted cloth; strong, coarse wool for carpets.

Collection and merchants

Loop · a grader opening a wool sheet

British Wool, owned by farmers, collects through 148 sites, grades fleece into types and sells it at auction in Bradford to 12 registered buyers.

Traded: graded lots by type and test results
Who: British Wool, 12 auction buyers, about 20 merchants

18.6m kg through British Wool, 2025 clip, books closed Easter 2026 British Wool sale report BW217 See 10 on the map

173.3p/kg: average greasy price at auction, Auction BW221 Before: 163.2p/kg (Auction BW218) British Wool sale report BW221
52.5%: of the wool offered was sold, Auction BW221 Before: 98.6% (Auction BW218) British Wool sale report BW221
99.5p/kg: average paid to farmers, 2024 clip British Wool Marketing Board report 2024 to 2025 (GOV.UK)

Private merchants such as Standard Wool and Curtis Wool Direct also buy direct from farms.

Scouring

Narrow point

Loop · wool moving through the wash bowls

Greasy wool is washed to remove grease, dirt and plant matter.

Traded: clean wool by yield
Who: two significant scourers in the UK, Thomas Chadwick (Standard Wool group) and Haworth Scouring (Curtis Wool Direct), plus small mills scouring by the kilo

2 scourers of any size See 7 on the map

What is left after washing (the yield) is what the next buyer pays for.

Combing

Narrow point

Loop · top coming off the comb

For worsted yarn, clean wool is combed so the fibres lie parallel and short fibres are removed.

Traded: tops by micron and length
Who: one commission comber found, Haworth Combing (Curtis Wool Direct)

1 commission comber See 1 on the map

The result is a continuous rope called a top. Woollen yarn skips this step and is carded instead, usually inside the spinning mill.

Spinning

Loop · ring frames spinning

Tops or carded wool are drawn out and twisted into yarn.

Traded: yarn by count, ply and blend
Who: industrial spinners in Yorkshire (Laxtons, The Wool Spinners, Z. Hinchliffe and others), mills that spin and weave, and mini mills spinning single-farm yarn

22 on the map See 22 on the map

Worsted yarn is smooth and strong; woollen yarn is soft and airy.

Dyeing and finishing

Narrow point

Loop · yarn lifted from the dye vat

Wool can be dyed as fibre, top, yarn or finished cloth.

Traded: commission work by the kilo or metre
Who: commission dyers and finishers in Huddersfield, Holmfirth, Selkirk and Langholm. Two Bradford dyers closed in August and September 2026; no commission top dyer is left in Yorkshire

10 on the map See 10 on the map

Cloth is then finished: washed, milled, raised, pressed. Finishing is what makes a tweed feel like a tweed.

Weaving and knitting

Loop · a loom or knitting machine at work

Yarn becomes cloth on a loom, or knitted fabric and garments on a knitting machine.

Traded: cloth by weight and weave; knitted garments by style
Who: weaving mills in Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales and the West Country; knitters in Hawick, Leicester and beyond

51 on the map See 51 on the map

Many British jumpers are knitted whole or in panels by contract knitters in Leicestershire, the Scottish Borders and Northumberland.

Making up

Loop · linking a collar

Cloth is cut and sewn into coats, suits, uniforms, kilts and blankets.

Traded: finished products
Who: tailoring and outerwear factories, kiltmakers, knitwear finishers

42 on the map See 42 on the map

Knitted panels are linked, washed and pressed.

Brands and customers

Still · the label sewn in

Brands design, sell and tell the story.

Traded: products to customers
Who: fashion and knitwear brands, bedding, carpets, upholstery, hand-knit yarn, uniforms

22 on the map See 22 on the map

At least 119 brands are British Wool partners; about 100 of them do not name the mill that made their product.

Worked example: a FLOC jumper

FLOC (Cardigan, Ceredigion) makes knitwear from Laxtons' Wooltrace yarn. Wooltrace already traces each cone or hank to a farm or group of farms by QR code. Laxtons works with British Wool farmers directly. That makes it the best thin slice to trace end to end.

Layer	Who	Known from
1. Farms	Named on the Wooltrace QR page; Romney farmers per one Laxtons source	British Wool
2. Collection	British Wool	Campaign for Wool, 2024
3. Scouring	Not stated: Chadwick or Haworth	Gap
4. Combing	Not stated	Gap
5. Spinning	Laxtons, Baildon: Wooltrace DK	British Wool brand page
6. Dyeing	Not stated; Park Valley Dyers dyes for Laxtons	Gap
7. Knitting	KnitLab North, Northumberland	British Wool brand page
9. Brand	FLOC, with labels by Weavabel, Leeds	British Wool brand page

What a full trace adds: the scourer, comber and dyer; the link from a farm lot to a yarn batch to a jumper; and the record that lets FLOC tell the whole story, not only the farm and the spinner.

Directory as of 2026-11-04. Know a business we've missed? Tell us.

Worked example: a FLOC jumper

One letter a month. The people behind what you buy.