‘In Europe the best wool is English and in England the best wool is Cotswold’ (12th century saying). In the Middle Ages, the Cotswolds was well known as the source of some of the best wool. Abbeys and Monastries would keep large flocks of ‘Cotswold Lion’ sheep with their long, golden fleeces. (The breed had originally been introdued to this part of Britain by the Romans) The riches the Cotswold wool brought to the region helped to build many of the great houses and churches that we see today. At that time as much as 50% of England’s economy was due to wool. To this day, the Lord Chancellor sits on a sack stuffed with wool in the House of Lords – a sign of how important the humble sheep has been to our nation.
