Flax to Linen

Flax has been grown for many centuries and its uses include the manufacture of linen and linseed oil.

Field names in Totley included in a 1549 rental were Little Leenley, Leenley and Great Leenley, names associated with the clearing of trees for the growing of flax. These were sloping closes on the western edge of the township (on the left side of the Totley to Baslow Road after leaving the built-up area).

Locals would sow the crop in spring and harvest it three months later. After drying and deseeding (by threshing) it was then partly rotted using the water of a stream - in this case the Leenley Sick which joined up with Needham's Dike at Monnybrook.

This process made it easy to separate the bark from the core and the fibres of the latter were separated and dried. The better quality was used for weaving into linen, whilst the coarser fibre was used for cord and twine.

Inventories from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries show that most Totley households had their own spinning wheels; it is not thought that this developed into mass production, rather for domestic use and often spun by the ladies and servants - hence the term 'spinster'.

By the middle of the eighteenth century cotton had superseded linen in many homes although flax spinning was carried out in mills elsewhere.