Where does the wool of your rug come from?

Luxurious and soft-touch wool carpets are the intimate friend of our warm home decorations. Wool is the only authentic, sustainable natural fiber that synthetic materials seek to emulate. In this article, we will learn about the types of sheep (sheep) that produce the finest wool for making your carpet!

Mostly mountain sheep or hill sheep are among the breeds from which the best types of carpet wool are made. The strong mountain rocks help keep the sheep warm in the winter months, and when summer arrives the sheep do not need their wool and this turns into beautiful and durable carpets.

A lot of carpet wool is imported from New Zealand, but the UK is also known for producing high quality wool.

1. Mountain sheep

Mountain sheep, the hardiest of sheep, produce the coziest wool and are ideal for pure wool carpets.

2. Scottish Blackface

These robust sheep are the most common sheep in the UK, with 30% of all sheep in the UK being Scottish Blackfaced.

Both males and females have antlers and can survive in the harshest climates, with many living year after year in the Scottish Highlands without shelter, raising their lambs outdoors.

They have been bred in the UK since the 1500's (replacing the now extinct Scottish Dunface! It is also found in the United States, in order to use its meat in particular, but its long thick wool is of high value in the carpet industry.

3. Swaledale sheep

Named after the valley of the same name in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, east of the Pennines, these sheep have distinctive facial markings, being bright white around the eyes and nose.

These sheep are themselves very expensive, (known as 'tups') selling for about £25,000, though their wool is relatively cheap (40p a kilo), which makes them excellent in bulk, after all.

The breed is an official symbol of the city of Yorkshire Dales, and the origin of this breed has been the subject of fierce dispute; So much so, that when plans were presented in 2003 to build a "Swaldelle Sheep Visitor Center" at Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria, residents of Hawes in Richmondshire (about 16 miles south) vehemently objected, who had plans for their own visitor centre, with both towns claiming home. original to the breed.

4. Hillside sheep

• Lonk

The origin of this exotic name for this breed of sheep comes from the Lancashire word "Lanky", which means: long and fluffy, and this breed is one of the largest of the hill breeds, with a weight of about 40 to 46 kilograms and its very dense wool ideal for making a thick and luxurious carpet.

This breed has existed for hundreds of years in Penneys, and is believed to have been nurtured by two monks of Cistercian monasteries in Lancashire - Whalley and Sawley - in the 1530s.

And the smoothness of your color was found only in three counties (Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire), and this confirms that a catastrophe affected sheep in 2001 when foot-and-mouth disease broke out in the region, and the total smooth color of sheep at that time was just over 10,000 heads, and because they were exposed to this infectious disease, Which threatened its existence, there was a real danger that this strain would become extinct.

Fortunately, this did not happen, and preventive measures were taken, as the Heritage Gene Bank was established at the University of York, and samples were taken to preserve this strain from extinction, along with other strains (Herdwick and Rough Fell).

Since then, two lambs have been born using the samples taken, although all three strains have survived the threat of extinction!

• Sheep of the North Cheviot

Many breeds of sheep are called Cheviots, named after the hills between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, and this particular breed is supposed to have been nurtured by Sir John Sinclair, the original founder of the Board of Agriculture, who brought Cheviot sheep to Caithness in northern Scotland in 1791, and all Cheviot sheep in the North originate from his flocks, there are three sub-species: Hill, Caithness and Border.

Common in the UK and abroad, the Cheviot is considered a good sheep on many levels, its wool is used in knitwear as well as carpets in the North County Cheviot, and is easily recognizable because it has very long, straight ears.

5. Sheep hybrid

It is a crossbreed of sheep, but when it comes to wool, there is a specific type of crossbreed, based on a formula that has proven to be very effective.

Also known as "rams", these hybrid sheep are the result of cross-breeding between a breed of ram in the lowland and highland (hill or mountain) iwi, these sheep produce excellent wool for 100% pure wool carpets or woolen carpets with a mixture of materials other.

• marsham

This bright-fleeced sheep, comes from a cross between a Teeswater sheep or a Wensleydale ram, (both of which have a truly amazing curly fleece almost to the ground), and a stout sheep such as the aforementioned Swirldale, or the Dalesbred, its close relative, and is named after To Marsham, famous for its sheep fairs where thousands of sheep are sold every year.

• Rams of Northern England

The rams of the North of England are descendants of the blue rams of Leicester (a long breed and whose wool is better suited to fine cloth than a carpet) and the stout Swildale sheep, these sheep being hornless, mottled, and of good form; In an example of what biologists call "hybrid activity" or "heterogeneity", the best traits are inherited from both parents, and its wool combines the strength of the mother's wool with the luster of the father's wool.

The northern ram is similar in appearance to the Scottish and Welsh rams, both of which were also bred by the Bluefaced Leicester (or BFL for short). The northern ram of England is found throughout the UK and is one of the most popular commercial breeds. Its wool is frequently used in the production of rugs Brintons.

Now that you have more information about the origin of the wool that is used to make rugs, it is great to recognize the effort that goes into making a great rug, and to give the process the recognition it deserves.

There are many other breeds of sheep that we could have mentioned; Like the rare Manx Loaghtan sheep, which, like the Manx rugs, originate in the Isle of Man, or the Mountain Badger-Faced Welsh, which is believed to have been bred in the UK as far back as the seventh century AD.

Carpet makers go a long way before turning sheep's wool into a comfortable, soft and attractive carpet, to add it in the design of your interior decor, and add more warmth to your home spaces. We hope that the above information has helped you in exploring the types of wool that are used to make the original wool carpets!

Translated by: designer-carpet.co.uk