ORIGINS AND GROWTH

Traditionally this was the most important industry in Moreton, with a fulling mill recorded as early as 1297, but it declined to being not much more than a memory by the mid-19th century. We do not have comprehensive records but some documentary and physical evidence does remain to give glimpses of its history.


SHEEP
In the first known written record of ‘Moreton’, there were listed 20 cattle and 130 sheep on the lord’s demesne. Another 8 cattle, 4 pigs and 30 sheep were on a smaller manor in the parish at Wray, just to the south. If we take the argument of W. G. Hoskins that in Devon villeins had 4-5 X between them as many sheep and 2-3 X as many cattle as on the demesne, then the 28 Moreton villeins had c 600 sheep and c. 50 cattle while the 14 Wray villeins had c.20 cattle and c.135 sheep.
Domesday Book 1086

The poor local soils and upland pastures on the edge of Dartmoor provided perfect conditions for sheep, and wool became the most reliable agricultural product. All the seven parishes around Moreton had large flocks also and so wool was always an important element in the local economy.
E.g. After 1173 Doccombe had a separate manor of about 1300 acres manor in Moreton Parish. Their records show they had commoners’ rights to graze on Mardon Common between them 430 sheep, 32 bovates and 16 horses.
ED362 Lambeth Palace Library

MARKET AND FAIR
For much of the Middle Ages, wool was not processed into cloth locally but exported as raw fleece. Merchants carried Devon wool to ports such as Exeter and Dartmouth, where it was shipped to the Low Countries, France, and Italy. In these early centuries, the value of wool helped stabilise the incomes of rural estates and monasteries, which often controlled huge flocks. But beneath this layer of international trade, domestic spinning and weaving were spreading through Devon’s villages and farmsteads. Cloth production was still largely a cottage activity, done by women and children, but these skills laid the groundwork for a more formal industry.
King John granted Moreton a ‘weekly market & 5 day annual fair’. The fair was in November to coincide with the animals returning from their summer grazing on the High Moor knowns a ‘transhumance’. Another fair, granted in 1270, was held on the feast of St Margaret of Scotland on June 10th. Wool products were sold only at fairs, not markets so that suggests that by 1207 Moreton was already a centre of a local wool trade able attract enough trade to sustain a 5 day fair.
Close Rolls 8 John 5th May 1207 & Charter Rolls 9 John June 16th 1207:

Doccombe Manorial Records of July 1227 provide the earliesr reference to woollen cloth in the parish
A tenant was fined in plea of debt by another tenant that he detained 10 ells1 of grising2 & is distrained until satisfaction & damages given for the cloth.
1] Ell refers to an ancient measure of cloth, probably from the elbow to the tip of the midde finger or about 1.5 ft but it does seem to vary a lot in different regions & countries.
2] Grising was a form of grey cloth
CCA-U15/14/1 Canterbury Cathedral Archives

FULLING
While wide areas of land suitable for raising sheep were nearby, and while even vaster stretches of sheep-rearing land were available to those parishes which bordered Dartmoor, Moreton was a suitable point at which to process the fleeces.

An Inquisition Post Mortem of 1297 lists the lands & assets of Richard Fitzjohn the Lord of Moreton manor. They include a ‘fulling mill’ worth 8s annually and three water-mills worth £3. This is the fourth earliest fulling mill recorded in Devon. For the production of kersey cloths produced at this time fulling was essential, not optional; much of the final thickness and smooth surface came from the fulling, not the weave; the cloth often shrank significantly during fulling.
C 133/80/6 National Archives

We cannot be sure where the mill was situated. Over the next three or four centuries a handful of fulling mills appeared in the parish on the sides of the River Teign and the Wray Brook.

In 1332 the Prior of Christ Church Cathedral Monastery wrote about a letter from a Doccombe tenant:
‘…We have heard that a certain woman, Agnes of Smalregg (Smallridge) by name, Our bondswoman, would wish to contract marriage, if it were Our pleasure, with a certain freeman named Richard, son of Roger the Shearman1 of Moreton(hampstead); but it doth not seem to Us, or to Our Council, that a contract of this kind could be made without prejudice to Our church….’
1] A shearman cut the cloth as part of the fulling process.
L486/L28b Christ Church letters (Camden Society edition 1877)

Another fulling mill was recorded at Wray Manor on the south side of the parish in the mid fifiteenth-century:
Parties: John Corset {Cossick}, querent, and John Norys, deforciant.
Property: 1 messuage, 1 dove-cot, 1 water mill,1 fulling mill, 3 ferlings of land, 6 acres of meadow, 4 acres of wood and 3 acres of alder in Wrey (Moretonhampstead).
Action: Plea of covenant.
Agreement: John Norys has acknowledged the tenements to be the right of John Corset, as those which he has of his gift, and has remised and quitclaimed them from himself and his heirs to John Corset and his heirs for ever.
Warranty: For this: John Corset has given him 100 marks of silver.
1446 Feet of Fines CP 25/1/46/87, number 217. County: Devon. Place: Westminster. Date: The day after St Martin, 25 Henry VI [12 November 1446].

BY THE LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY WOOLLEN CLOTH WAS THE STAPLE INDUSTRY OF THE TOWN, AND SO IT REMAINED FOR THE NEXT THREE HUNDRED YEARS.
It was very probably money from the wool trade which paid for the rebuilding of the church tower in 1418either directly, through tolls, or indirectly, through profits raised by the Courtenay family from the manor and borough. In about 1450 the whole of the remainder of the old church was torn down and the nave and aisle of the present church buitl, to gtehr with part of the preent chancle. The bishop granted a 40 day indulgence to ‘contributors to the fabric, lights, ornaments etc of the chapel of St Andrew‘ in the parish of Moreton. The southern porch has a holy water stoop – a pre Reformation feature – and stonework similar to that of the main body that may also indicate it dates to this time.
The scale of the rebuilding points to the wealth in the community that could only have come from the woollen trade. It was followed by a Church House (destroyed by fire in 1845) and possibly by the old parsonage (replaced by Mardon Rectory in 1901) and the Almshouses – the date stone on them of 1637 could refer to a renovation or perhaps their actual building.
There is also evidence that several of the town houses were of fifteenth-century construction such as 2-6 Fords Street with their timber-framing and Mearsdon on Cross St. judging from its timbers in the roof space.

IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES WOOL PRODUCTION IN DEVON MOVED FROM A DOMESTIC ACTIVITY TO A MARKET BASED INDUSTRY
Towns such as Totnes, Ashburton, Crediton, and Tiverton develop organised clothmaking. It was the city of Exeter, however, that grew significantly as the main centre for finishing and export of cloth that was produced in the hinterland villages around it that included Moreton. Initially Devon dozen or kersey became the main cloth produced: At 12-13 yards long it was half the length of traditional English broadcloth but about the same width – 63-66 inches. Made from lower grade long & short fibre wool, it was coarser & lighter but thickened by fulling. Popular as clothing for servants & the poor, it did well in export to France & the Mediterranean Region, especially when dyed in bright colours.

GOLDEN AGE OF DEVON CLOTH (16TH–17TH CENTURIES)
The woollen industry became Devon’s leading economic force. Production shifts from raw wool export to finished cloth, especially “serges.” Woven from 2 types of yarn, short-wool carded variety & long-wool combed variety that was a worsted1 lighter yarn. Lighter than kerseys but also fulled & so very strong as well as light and best suited to wool that was available from Devon and Somerset.
1] Worsted wool is made from long wool fibres that are combed so they lie parallel before spinning. Short fibres are removed in the proces

Fulling mills, dyehouses, spinning and weaving workshops expand across the county.
“The whole town and country is employ’d for at least 20 mile round in spinning, weaving, dressing, and scouring, fulling and drying of the serges, it turns the most money in a week of anything in England, one week with another there is £10,000 paid in ready money, sometimes £15,000.”
Celia Fiennes wrote in her Journal after visiting Exeter in 1698.

Like the other surrounding towns and villages Moreton’s wool producers fed their cloth to the Company of Weavers, Fullers and Shearmen at their Exeter Guildhall known as Tucker’s Hall. But they had to make sure of the quality of their product.
Thomas Pynson, late of Moretonhampstead, was convicted by Exter City Chamber for selling a ‘falsely made’ kersey1 in Exeter market, ‘the same [having been] tried [examined] by the company of the Tucjkers and Weavers’. The cloth was declared forfeit and Pynson was put in the pillory, ‘yn example to others’.
1] Kersey is a kind of coarse woollen cloth defined as “warp back cloths woven in twill order.”
1564 J. Youings ‘Tuckers Hall’ quotes  Exeter City Minutes Act Book Iv fo. 268 1680-1: Exeter’s Custom House was built to handle booming exports.

By the late C17th there was growing concern in Devon about increasing competition from Ireland. The Inhabitants of the Towns of Crediton, Ashburton, Honiton, Otter St. Mary, Bampton and Moreton petitoned parliament in favour of a Bill to establish “An Act to encourage the Woollen Manufacture in England, and to restrain the Exportation of Woollen Manufactures from Ireland into any Foreign Parts, and for the better preventing the Exportation of Wool from England and Ireland.”
Here is the petition and the names of the petitioners: https://www.moretonhampstead.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/woollen-petn.pdf
This petition had little effect as many of the membrs of parliament owned Irish estates, and woollen manufacture began its slow decline.

THE DIFFICULT ROAD OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

After the Civil War, the Merchant Adventurer Company in London and the Exeter French Company lost control of the export trade and individual merchants started to export their own cloth and import other goods. When trade was good, the flocks of Devon sheep could not keep up with serge production, and fleece had to be imported from the surrounding counties and Wales, and eventually imports of raw wool from Ireland and Spain dominated the supply of raw material for weaving the cloth.

Changing European Markets shifted in several ways:

  • European consumers increasingly preferred newer worsted fabrics produced elsewhere.
  • Continental manufacturers began producing their own competing textiles.
  • Political and military disruptions reduced trade with traditional markets.

So over time Devon’s exports declined as buyers found cheaper or more fashionable alternatives.

THE ORGANISATION OF THE MORETONHAMPSTEAD WOOLLEN INDUSTRY

The woollen industry lent itself to subdivison by the several processes involved in turning fleece into fabric. As one contemporary observer noted.
“The gentleman, farmer, or husbandman, sends his wool to the market, which is bought either by the comber or spinster; and they the next week bring it again in yarn, which the weavers buy, and the market following bringe it thither again in cloth, when it is sold either to the clothier, (who sends it to London,) or to the marchant, who (after it hath passed the fuller’s mill, and sometimes the dyer’s vat) transports it.”
A View of Devonshire In MDCXXX: With A Pedigree Of Most Of Its Gentry By Thomas Westcote  (Written 1650-80)

By 1700 specialisation was most pronounced in Devon:
The Principal spinning districts were around Barnstaple & Bideford, the receiving ports for Irish wool; between Dartmoor & Bodmin Moor (as at Launceston, Liskeard, & Tavistock); & on the eastern side of Dartmoor around Ashburton.
The manufacturing area proper (woolcombing, weaving, fulling,dyeing & felting) lay to the north, north-east, & west of Exeter, in a belt from Taunton across to North Tawton, including Moretonhampstead & Chagford, controlled by Tuckers Hall Exeter

In turn Moreton’s woollen workers were subdivided and increasingly organised by entrepreneurs often decsribed as ‘sergemakers’ or clotheirs. The wool workers who made the serge in Moreton were mostly poor people working in their own homes, spinning and weaving, financed by more important people (usually described as ‘sergemakers’) who provided the financial backing for the later stages of finishing and marketing the cloth.

WOOLCOMBERS
The first stage after the shearing of the sheep was the preparation of the wool for the spinner.
“The Dartmoor wool clip was washed, spun into yarn and made up into serges the towns and villages skirting the moor. At Moretonhampstead, the trade consisted largely in the washing wool, which the inhabitants boasted “an art peculiar and a quality in the water fitted for the purpose, not excelled, equalled, anywhere.”
Exeter & Plymouth Gazette May 21st 1759

At this stage and also after fulling may have been stretched out on the gorse bushes above the mill, rather than on fixed frames with ‘tenterhooks’ as in Exeter.
“On the West of the Exeter back-lane lie the Mill-lands. The Higher Mill-lands have about 4 acres, the Middle Mill-land has 3.5acres, & the Lower one 3.5 acres….
The lands are all arable or meadow except a part of the middle Cunacre & the Lower Mill-Lane in which brooms are suffered to grow for the combing of drying wool on them which is very benefitiall to the Rector.”
Moretonhampstead Glebelands1 Terrier 1727
1] The Glebelands were about 80 acres of land around the church (including the present Sentry) that provided income for the Rector.
There are number of fields around the sites of the fulling mills (see below) named ‘Rackemeade’.

The wool passed on to the woolcomber who combed it with teazels or special wool combs – wooden bats with rows of metal pins to ‘tease’ out the strands. The patron of the Woolcombers guild in Devon was Bishop Blaze, who is depicted with a wool comb – there is still a Bishop Blaze pub near the quay in Exeter, and there used to be one in Moreton near the church. The following excerpts from Sylvester Treleaven’s diary show that the tradition was still respected in his day, and that the woolcombers enjoyed their ceremonial activities.

Thur. March 26 1789. This being the day fixed on by the principal inhabitants for celebrating the happy recovery of his Majesty, King George III, from illness the morning was ushered in with the ringing of bells. A bullock was roasted whole in the Centry while two hogsheads of cyder was distributed to the populace. These were bought by subscription. A sheep was roasted whole by the Weavers. In the afternoon there was a grand procession of Woolcombers. Several of the masters walked before with cockades made with different colored wool. Next followed the General on horse-back (Mr George Comin) dressed in blue with a cap made of different coloured wool. Anthony Tallamy on horseback in the character of Bishop Blaze, John Browne and Ann Matthews shepherds, Mr George Mardon, Ensign with Union Flag with about 100 men & boys with holland shirts & caps made of different coloured wools. They walked two & two & made a very martial appearance. They marched through the different streets & then to the Centry where they performed several military manouvres to the satisfaction of a great number of Spectators.
Mon. Feb. 3rd, 1800. St. Blase. The Woolcombers in honour of their Saint and Patron, had a dinner at their Club House (Ring of Bells). In the afternoon the Union Flag was hoisted at the Club Room window, and the afternoon was spent with the greatest decorum.
Thur. Feb. 3rd, 1803. The Woolcombers had a Dinner at their Club House (The Dolphin Inn) in honour of Bishop Blaze.
Sun. Feb. 13th, 1803. Died aged 62 Anthony Tallamy, Woolcomber, he was honoured with the Title of Bishop Blaze, and appeared in that character on several public occasions.

The order of procession for the grand celebration of the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 included:
‘The Golden Fleece, carried by Jason, in Grecian attire, on horseback, shepherd and shepherdesses, four sheap sharers in a cart, adorned, shearing, four wool-winders1, sorters, washers, Bishop Blaze on horseback, woolcombers, and quill-winders,1 also horses laden with serges’..
1] After wool had been spun into yarn, it was usually made into skeins (called ‘chains’ locally) for washing, dyeing, and transport. Before it could be used, it often had to be rewound that it ensured even tension in the yarn to prevented tangles and breakage A Trade Directory for 1793 also lists a ‘sizer of worsted chains‘ – a worker who strengthened and prepared parrallel warp threads with starch or paste before they were woven into worsted cloth to prevent fraying or breaking. ‘Chain linneys‘ are found listed in local property conveyances and leases.
2] A quill-winder wound weft yarn onto small tubes called quills that fitted into shuttles for weaving.

Sergemaking

Brice’s Grand gazetteer for 1759 contains the following remark :-‘Moretonhampstead, most commonly called Moreton, is a very populous town. The share the inhabitants have in the woollen trade helps to maintain their numerous poor. The trade consists much in the washing of wool in which they boast an art peculiar, and a quality in the water most fitted for the purpose, not excelled if equalled anywhere. They make a good quantity of serges which are sold in Exeter market’. The industry started to decline towards the end of that century, mainly because of competition from the coal-fired mills of Yorkshire (whereas Moreton only had water power, and not a great deal of that). Soon after 1759 woollen manufacture ceased altogether, and a new use was found for a few years for the mill and its hammers as a paper mill.

A list of cloth merchants and manufacturers insured with the Sun Fire Office between 1726-1770 give the following names in Moreton:

  • John Bridgman, sergemaker, 1750 and 1761 John Bridgman jr. sergemaker, 1771
  • Joseph Edwards, sergemaker, 1740
  • Abraham Jackson, sergemaker & woolcomber 1749, 1798
  • Jabez Jackson, sergemaker, 1798
  • James Jackson, sergemaker, 1764
  • William Marwood, sergemaker, 1742
  • William Parr, sergemaker, 1755, 1757
  • Edward Pethybridge, sergemaker, 1748, 1756
  • Thomas Puddicome, sergemaker, 1770
  • George Smale, sergemaker, 1756, 1765; Robert Smale, sergemaker, 1770
  • Richard Varder, 1752
  • Joseph Webber, sergemaker, 1771
  • Alexander Whiteway, clothier, 1730
  • William Whiteway, clothier, 1757

These men were in most cases insuring both their homes and their business premises (sometimes the same), also sometimes houses owned by them but occupied by others (sometimes the weavers). With the prevalence of thatch and the risk of fire in Moreton, it was obviously necessary that cloth and wool in store had to be properly insured. The values were usually £200-300, but the clothier carried £400-500 insurance, finished goods being obviously worth more.

Treleaven chronicles the mechanisation of the weaving process in Moreton, including two nasty accidents, one (1830) at Mr Dicker’s mill at North Bovey:

Wed. June 5th 1799. Mr. White of Ashburton took Mr.John Mardon’s house, and enters on it at Mid-summer next, he has several Spinning Jennies, and has bought One-Mill at the bottom of Long-meadow, where he is going to erect a Machine for Carding and Scribling Wool.

Thurs. June 27th, 1799. Mr. White’s Machine at One Mill sat to work, several Children employed, and likely to prove a benefit to the Town

Nov. 29th, 1802. This Evening a melancholy accident happened at One Mill, Mr. Wm. White’s factory. A Girl of Richard Hutchings’ aged 12 working at the Mill going too near the Axle of the great Cylinder, it caught the sleeve of her apron and broke her left arm in a most shocking rnanner, the flesh and bones of her arm were broken from the elbow to the shoulder to such a degree, that at first an amputation was thought necessary, and Mr. Patch, of Exeter Surgeon, was sent for, but on consultation they thought there might be a possibility of saving the arm and every method that could be devised was taken for that purpose .

Fri. Feb. 14th 1806. Last night about 8 o’clock a fire broke out at One Mill factory, belonging to Mr. Wm. White which nearly burnt the whole building, with part of the machinery. It cannot be accounted for how it happened, but generally supposed by accident. The house &c was insured.

Sat. Mar. 27th 1830. Mary Yandell (an apprentice to Mr. Westlake) who was at work at Mr. Dicker’s factory, North Bovey, imprudently putting one of her hands too near the scribling Machine, it was instantaneously caught in, and the flesh and tendons of her arm lacerated in a shocking manner; fortunately part of the machine broke, otherwise her arm must have been broken to pieces.

The people involved in the wool industry

The trade directory for 1793 lists 9 wool-combers, 7 serge-makers and a ‘sizer of worsted chains’, but there are no entries in later directories for these categories. Significantly eleven of the 35 feoffees listed in 1793 were either sergemakers or woolcombers. In 1823 and 1830 there were two ‘worsted-manufacturers’ (one also a woolcomber) but we have no later listings of these occupations. The nearest trades were Isaac Billett who was a rope and twine maker from 1823-1857 (also Ferris, Frost, Bovey in 1826-40) and Robert Marwood who was a basket-maker. The same picture appears from the occupations listed in the Census. In 1841 there were about 35 weavers (many elderly women but sometimus also their daughters); in 1851 there are only a handful of elderly weavers, several described as ‘retired’ or ‘pauper’.

The parish register of baptisms records the occupation of the father only after 1812, but the presbyterian records sometimes include this from earlier years. The only appearance of serge-makers or weavers in the baptisms is for the family of George Mardon, sergemaker, in 1792-1801.

Treleaven’s diaries report the deaths of a number of personalities of the woollen industry – here are a few of them.

Thur. Jan. 31st 1799. This day died after a few days illness, Mr. Thomas Puddicombe, at the advanced age of 97 years, formerly a respectable Serge-Maker of this town, but had declined business for some years. It is remarkable that he retained his sight and reason to the last.

Mon Oct. 28th 1799. Died this morning John Berry Weaver aged 78 years he has left a widow aged 76; they had been Married 58 years, and had 13 children, 6 of them now living; they have had 51 Grand-Children, 45 of them now living. He lived in the same House that he died in 68 years, – Work’d for Mr. Wm. Smale and his father upwards of 50 years and had been Sexton to the Presbyterian Meeting House 34 years.

Wed. Feb. 24th 1802. Died suddenly of an apoplectic fit, in the 50th year of his age Mr. Boetius Wrayford. He was a man universally esteemed, and his death will be sensibly felt by a number labourers that he constantly employed in the Woollen line.

The deeds of Greenhill House throw some light on the woollen industry in Moreton. They show that Samuel Lightfoot the elder, feltmaker, became a tenant of the house in 1689, and later bought the property, which remained in his family until 1861. Samuel was the son of John Lightfoot, feltmaker, which carries this trade back further in the same family. During the 18th century the small buildings behind the main house were tenanted by weavers and sergemakers.

Click here for Celia Fiennes’s eye-witness account of the handling of serges in Exeter in 1698: