TEXTILES in TRUNCH
Textiles have undoubtedly been made in Trunch since early times but concrete evidence is hard to find apart from the many pottery spinning whorls that have turned up. The names Fuller and Flaxman are common in the Trunch records and the meaning of these names is related to textile manufacture. Fulling was the process of treading cloth in water to bulk it up and some of the ponds in Trunch may have been used for this. Flaxman could refer to someone making linen from flax. Making cloth from hemp and flax was very common in the rural areas of Norfolk in the Middle Ages, with Aylsham as a particular linen manufacturing centre. On the 1839 Tithe Map there are two fields, East of the North Walsham Road, named as Hemp Land. Burnett is another Trunch name and it can mean a woollen cloth dyed dark brown.
In the Gimingham Soke book it is suggested that the name Bolt may have descended from "one Bolt, a worsted merchant" who left a fortune and in 1481 was considered to be an eligible match for one of the Paston women. Robert Bolt is on the 1523 subsidy roll and the will of William Bolt the elder, of Trunch, was proved in London in 1547. Norfolk Record Office also have a record of a Robert Wignall of Trunch, who was said to be a "thick woollen weaver" and in his 1680 will Robert Bane described himself as a worstead weaver.
Some researchers identify weavers by studying probate records although this only identifies weavers who were prosperous enough to leave wills. However Nesta Evans found 5 weavers in Trunch, 3 with Worsted and 2 others. Worsted was the finer, smoother, more durable cloth made from longer wool fibres. Arthur and Thomas Gryme were worsted weavers in Trunch in the 1700s. Another weaver was Thomas Dixon whose will can be accessed from the Dixons page and a woollen weaver called Woferan Ryboroughe left a will in 1629.
Goodrich also gives two references to the wool trade. He says that Bolt or Bolte was a wealthy wool manufacturer and that William Bolte was buried in the church but I have not seen a memorial. He also says that John Gogle, who paid for the 1501 Rood Screen in the church, was a wool merchant. It is possible that some of the Flemish sounding names in the Trunch parish registers belonged to textile workers from the Continent who had moved here to work and to escape religious persecution.
Most of the spinners and weavers however would have been poor people working in their own cottages and leaving no record. However teasels still grow wild in Trunch and they were used as a natural comb to clean, align and raise the nap of fabrics particularly wool. Two spinners, Ann Fisher and Hannah Dixon, were mentioned in the Norfolk Chronicle in 1792 when they were fined for "false reeling" which meant that they were producing yarn for worsted cloth with too few threads. In 1802 Elizabeth Colman was convicted of the same offence.
Searchers with metal detectors have also found several pottery spinning whorls in the fields surrounding Trunch.
In the Gimingham Soke book it is suggested that the name Bolt may have descended from "one Bolt, a worsted merchant" who left a fortune and in 1481 was considered to be an eligible match for one of the Paston women. Robert Bolt is on the 1523 subsidy roll and the will of William Bolt the elder, of Trunch, was proved in London in 1547. Norfolk Record Office also have a record of a Robert Wignall of Trunch, who was said to be a "thick woollen weaver" and in his 1680 will Robert Bane described himself as a worstead weaver.
Some researchers identify weavers by studying probate records although this only identifies weavers who were prosperous enough to leave wills. However Nesta Evans found 5 weavers in Trunch, 3 with Worsted and 2 others. Worsted was the finer, smoother, more durable cloth made from longer wool fibres. Arthur and Thomas Gryme were worsted weavers in Trunch in the 1700s. Another weaver was Thomas Dixon whose will can be accessed from the Dixons page and a woollen weaver called Woferan Ryboroughe left a will in 1629.
Goodrich also gives two references to the wool trade. He says that Bolt or Bolte was a wealthy wool manufacturer and that William Bolte was buried in the church but I have not seen a memorial. He also says that John Gogle, who paid for the 1501 Rood Screen in the church, was a wool merchant. It is possible that some of the Flemish sounding names in the Trunch parish registers belonged to textile workers from the Continent who had moved here to work and to escape religious persecution.
Most of the spinners and weavers however would have been poor people working in their own cottages and leaving no record. However teasels still grow wild in Trunch and they were used as a natural comb to clean, align and raise the nap of fabrics particularly wool. Two spinners, Ann Fisher and Hannah Dixon, were mentioned in the Norfolk Chronicle in 1792 when they were fined for "false reeling" which meant that they were producing yarn for worsted cloth with too few threads. In 1802 Elizabeth Colman was convicted of the same offence.
Searchers with metal detectors have also found several pottery spinning whorls in the fields surrounding Trunch.
Another piece of evidence is an 1829 report in the Times about a burglary at Gimingham Workhouse when the accused mentioned a loom that he was working on. Records also show that there were apprentice tailors in the village - in 1717 Jonathan Matthews was apprenticed to Hugh Carr and in 1792 Jonathan Rust was apprenticed to Jas Willey.
In the census records from 1841-1911 there is no mention of spinning or weaving as occupations, although there were several tailors, tailoresses, seamstresses and dress makers. There is also evidence of Trunch people moving North to work in the cotton industry in Lancashire (including the SELF family) and the woollen industry in Yorkshire (the BUTTLES) See Trunch travellers. The school log also records that in the 19th Century girls were taught needlework and knitting at school.