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Medieval Life, Castles and Textiles For our March 2008 event we visited Weoley Castle Ruins which was a fortified Manor House built by the Earls of Dudley. We looked around the ruins and spotted lots of Mason’s Marks in one of the garderobes. We learned about gongfermers, and how people living in the castle would have hung their clothes near to the toilet so that the smell of urine would keep the moths away.
Martin told us all about dying cloth and we used madder, Brazil Wood, onion skins, and turmeric to see what colours we could get fabric and sheep’s wool to go. We learned about how far natural dye materials travelled across the globe and who would have been able to afford Indigo, we also learned how natural dyes were fixed using mordents – salt, urine or alum – we used alum! The brightest colour we got from our natural dye ingredients was from the turmeric which went a spectacular yellow – which was one of the colours of the Earls of Dudley!
Next we looked at textiles and spinning using drop spindles – Bob told us about flax, wool and silk, carding with teasels, and how wearing silk could help keep fleas away! We then made our own human loom and small individual looms out of card to weave small mats and coasters. |
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Copyright © 2004 Birmingham's Young Archaeologists
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