Worstead

Worstead gives its name to a type of cloth called Worsted, woven in the village in the middle ages. Early in his reign Edward III, married to a Flemish princess, actively encouraged immigration of Flemings to “exercise their mysteries in the kingdom”. Attracted by abundant supplies of wool in England, a considerable number of weavers settled in and around Norwich where Norfolk sheep produced the same long wool as they had used in Flanders. This was made into the cloth called Worsted giving both warmth and strength. This trade brought not only wealth and prosperity to England for 600 years but also provided a household word throughout the world. Weaving flourished in the village for over five hundred years, until the last weaver, John Cubitt, died in 1882 aged 91. The hand loom trade died out completely with the onset of power driven looms in the north of the country. Today some of the weavers’ houses in and around the village survive. They are large and spacious, they had to be because weaving looms can be l2ft high. Each house had its own cellar with wooden beams interlacing the ceiling, where the wool was stored at a cool even temperature. The crypt of one house with a groined ceiling still survives at the bottom of a derelict stair under the bake house in the market square.