It all comes out of four buildings
Each piece passes through one or two of them and then goes in a box. They are between eleven and a hundred and forty miles apart, they all have names and phone numbers, and you can browse the whole catalogue by the one a thing came out of.
Vale Mill
- Where
- Bacup, Lancashire
- Working since
- Since 1892
- Scale
- Four looms still running
Everything woven starts here. The cotton arrives baled, gets combed and spun into a long-staple yarn, and comes off the loom as poplin, twill or canvas. The mill has been doing it on the same site since 1892 and through four owners, and the two men who set the looms between them have been there fifty-one years.
Out of this building
And 3 more.
Belvoir Works
- Where
- Sneinton, Nottingham
- Working since
- Since 2016
- Scale
- Nineteen machinists
Cloth comes in on the roll and garments leave on hangers. Nineteen people cut, sew, press and pack everything this shop sells, and the jersey is knitted in the same building. Nothing is made in numbers we cannot sell, which is why the run sizes are small and why things go out of stock and stay that way.
Out of this building
And 9 more.
Holme Bank Mill
- Where
- Honley, West Yorkshire
- Working since
- Since 1949
- Scale
- Six frames
The knitwear, on six frames in a valley outside Huddersfield. Cotton rather than wool, which is unusual up there and is why the cream is never quite the same twice: nobody dyes it. Panels are knitted, washed, pressed and then linked by hand at the shoulder.
Out of this building
Chapel Yard Hosiery
- Where
- Ruddington, Nottinghamshire
- Working since
- Since 1961
- Scale
- One frame, one pair at a time
The socks, and only the socks. An old hosiery frame that knits one pair at a time and puts a hand-linked toe on the end of each, so there is no ridge across the end of your foot. It is slower than anything else we use and it is the reason the socks come in threes.
Out of this building
And then a fifth, on Harbour Street
One small room at the harbour end of the high street in Whitstable, with everything we make in it plus the samples and the seconds. It is the only place you can hold any of this before you buy it, and the kettle is usually on.
Find the shop