Broadcloth

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Broadcloth

Broadcloth is a dense woolen

Woolen

Woollen is the name of a yarn and cloth usually made from wool. Woollen yarn is known for being light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn....
cloth

Textile

A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by Spinning raw wool fibres, linen, cotton, or other material on a spinning wheel to produce long strands known as yarn....
. Modern broadcloth can be composed of cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa....
, silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from Pupa#Cocoons made by the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity ....
, or polyester

Polyester

Polyester is a category of polymers which contain the ester functional group in their main chain. Although there are many polyesters, the term "polyester" as a specific material most commonly refers to polyethylene terephthalate ....
, but traditionally broadcloth was made solely of wool

Wool

Wool is the fiber derived from the specialized skin cells, called follicles, of animals in the Caprinae family, principally domestic sheep, but the hair of certain species of other Mammalia such as cashmere goat, llamas, rabbits and keeshonds may also be called wool....
. The dense weave lends sturdiness to the material.

It was made in several parts of England

England

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Encyclopedia

Broadcloth is a dense woolen

Woolen

Textile

Cotton

Silk

Polyester

Wool

England

Staple (textiles)

Staple is a term referring to naturally formed clusters or locks of wool fibres throughout a fleece that are held together by cross fibres. The staple strength of wool is one of the major determining factors when Spinning yarn as well as the sale price of greasy wool....
wool, carded

Carding

Carding is the processing of brushing raw or washed fibers to prepare them as textiles. A large variety of fibers can be carded, anything from dog hair, to llama, to soy fiber , to polyester....
and spun

Spinning (textiles)

Spinning is an ancient textile arts in which fiber crop, animal fiber or synthetic fiber fibers are twisted together to form yarn . For thousands of years, fiber was spun by hand using simple tools, the Spindle and distaff....
into yarn

Yarn

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibers, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking....
and then woven on a broad loom

Loom

A loom is a machine or device for weaving thread or yarn into textiles. Looms can range from very small hand-held frames, to large free-standing hand looms, to huge automatic mechanical devices....
to produce cloth 1.75 yards wide it was then fulled

Fulling

Fulling or tucking or walking is a step in woollen Textile manufacturing which involves the cleansing of cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker....
, usually in a fulling mill. When fulled, the fibers of the cloth would felt

Felt

Felt is a non-weave cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials....
together, resulting in a smooth surface.

Historical manufacture

Around 1500, broadcloth was made in a number of districts of England, including Essex

Essex

Essex is a counties of England in the East of England England. The county town is Chelmsford, and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, Essex, close to the Hertfordshire border, which reaches ....
and Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a Non-metropolitan counties of England of Historic counties of England in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south....
in southern East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia is a region of eastern England. It was named after one of the ancient Heptarchy, the Kingdom of the East Angles, which was in turn named after the homeland of the Angles, Angeln, in northern Germany....
, the West Country

West Country

The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region....
Clothing District (Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a Counties of England in South West England England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, Wiltshire

Wiltshire

Wiltshire is a Ceremonial counties of England in the South West England of England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire....
, east Somerset

Somerset

Somerset is a Counties of England in South West England. The county town is Taunton, which is in the south of the county. The Ceremonial counties of England of Somerset borders the counties of Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west....
- sometimes with adjacent areas), at Worcester

Worcester

Worcester is a City status in the United Kingdom and county town of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some 30 miles southwest of Birmingham, 29 miles north of Gloucester, and has an estimated population of 94,300 people....
, Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a City status in the United Kingdom and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. With a population of 303,475 at the United Kingdom Census 2001 , Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom....
, Cranbrook

Cranbrook, Kent

Cranbrook is an old market town in Kent in South East England. It is also the smallest town in Kent. It is on the Maidstone to Hastings road and five miles north of Hawkhurst....
in Kent and some other places.

This was the best English cloth, and large quantities were exported by the merchants of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London

Company of Merchant Adventurers of London

The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London brought together City of London's leading overseas merchants in a regulated company, in the nature of a guild....
, principally to Antwerp

Antwerp

||-||-||-||}Antwerp is a city and municipality in Belgium and the capital of the Antwerp in Flanders, one of Belgium's three regions....
as white (i.e. undyed) cloth. It was finished and dye

Dye

A dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an Chemical affinity to the Wiktionary:substrate to which it is being applied....
d in Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Over the course of history, the geographical territory that was called "Flanders" has varied....
, and then marketed throughout northern Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
. The cloths might be short (24 yards long) or long (30 yards long).

The raw material for broadcloth from Worcester was wool from the Welsh

Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
border counties of Herefordshire

Herefordshire

Herefordshire is a Historic counties of England and Ceremonial counties of England Counties of England in the West Midlands Regions of England of England....
and Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire , alternatively known as Salop or abbreviated, in print only, Shrops, is a Counties of England in the West Midlands of England....
, known as Lemster (i.e. Leominster

Leominster

Leominster is a market town at in Herefordshire, England. It has a population of approximately 11,000 and is on the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater in North Herefordshire....
) wool. That for the West Country

West Country

The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region....
came from the Cotswolds

Cotswolds

The Cotswolds is a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the "Heart of England", an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty....
. In both cases, the high quality was the result of the comparatively poor pasture, which (probably aided by selective breeding

Selective breeding

Selective breeding in domesticated animals is the process of a Breeder developing a cultivated breed over time, and selecting qualities within individuals of the breed that will be best to pass on to the next generation....
) led the sheep to grow wool with the desired qualities.

English exports of broadcloth reached their highest level in the mid 16th century, after which some regions began producing other kinds of cloth, particularly various new draperies. Difficulties were encountered in export markets in the mid 1610s, partly due to currency difficulties in eastern Europe, and partly to the ill-conceived Cockayne Project

William Cockayne

Sir William Cockayne , London, England, was a seventeenth-century London merchant, alderman, and, in 1619, Lord Mayor of the City of London. In 1614, while serving as alderman in the City of London and as governor of the Eastland Company of English merchants, Cockayne devised a plan to dye and dress English cloth, England's main export at th...
. Broadcloth production thus declined in the 17th century.

Worcester

Worcester

Ludlow

Ludlow is a market town in Shropshire, England close to the Wales and in the Welsh Marches. It lies within a bend of the River Teme, on its eastern bank, forming an area of 350 acres and centred on a small hill....
and parts of the Cotswolds started to produce similar cloth, known as 'Worcesters'. The market suffered major setback in the 18th century, when the trade of the Levant Company

Levant Company

In England trading history, the Levant Company, or Turkey Company, was a chartered company formed in 1581, after London merchants petitioned Queen Elizabeth I in 1580 for a charter to begin trading in the Levant, a trade that had fallen away to near nothing in the previous decades, with guarantees of exclusivity....
with Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
was obstructed by French

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
competition. From this time, the production of broadcloth finally lost its importance.

Modern Uses

Wool broadcloth with its felted, velvety-like feel, has been a popular material for many years in furniture and luxury car interiors.