Hemp or Flax
Hemp and Flax could be used to produce cloth and may have been a cottage industry rather than a commercial undertaking. An alternative crop was nettles.
We have only a few notes regarding hemp and/or flax in Stowupland (See SLHG Archives/ECA/ Suffolk).
Ena Carter’s finding that there was a ‘retting pit to the east of Stowupland’ so possibly in the Saxham Street area is a start.
Retting was a step in preparing the vegetation into cloth and could be done in a river or pit. An act of parliament in Henry VIII’s reign made it unlawful to put ‘any manner of hemp or flax in any river…where beasts use to be watered, but only in the ground or pits’. Bundles of hemp of flax were weighted down under the water by stones or wood for four to six days, and then left to dry – which took around a month. The fibres were then broken down.
In the 1649 Inventory of John Hubbard, late yeoman of Stowupland ‘item certaine hemp 13 -4 (?)
And in 1653 Inventory of William Hubbard, late of Stowupland ‘in the backhouse chamber – 20 pounds wole, 4 stone hemp’ worth £2 2s 0d.
Although this refers to Stowmarket, it may have relevance to Stowupland. from Whites 1855 ” the town had formerly a small manufacture of worsted stuffs and ‘Suffolk hempen cloth’, & and has now a sacking and three horse-hair seating etc manufacturies and a large brewery. In the parish and neighbourhood are several extensive nurseries and market gradens, many hop grounds, corn mills etc. Excellent white bricks are made here.”
And from 10 years earlier ,Whites 1844, “The town had formerly a small manufacture of worsted stuffs and still gives employment to a number of persons in the manufacture of linen or ‘Suffolk hempen cloth’ and in making sacking. rope, twine, etc’.
