Weavers' Cottage - Loomshop

Loomshop

To be an efficient manufacturing facility, a loomshop needed good daylight, controlled ventilation, un-obstructed space, provision for storage, heat, and access for goods and workers. Hand looms were manual, the artisan raised the heddles using foot levers, and threw the shuttle the width of the loom by hand, forward and back. The left hand was used to operate the batten that compressed the pick. Broader cloth could not be woven this way, so the weaver used a child to throw back the shuttle. John Kay's flying shuttle of 1733, removed the need for the child. The weaver jerked the two hammers or pickers with a picking stick held in the right hand. The pickers propelled the shuttle, and the left hand operated the batten.

A loom shop would either be built as an attached shed entered from outside or as a garret above the house entered through a trap-door from below or by external stairs to minimize disruption when a new beam was brought in. Animal fibres (wool, silk) did not need sizing so considerations of humidity were unimportant. It was usual for a loomshop to contain three or four looms which were worked by members of the family. In the house below was a kitchen and scullery and living room on the ground floor and two bedrooms on the first, a typical two-up-two-down cottage. Sometimes a row of cottages would have a common loom-shop above, allowing several looms to be worked.

It was believed that artisan weavers wove cloth during poor weather and worked on their land when possible. It is more likely that some weavers worked full-time at the loom, breaking off to help their neighbours during the harvest. Some smallholders were weavers to supplement their main income. Full-time weavers tended to cluster in rows of cottages forming a hamlet while the smallholders cottage was likely to be solitary.

The man of the house was the most productive and worked full-time, his wife shared her time between the loom and childcare. Unmarried children were employed and trained on the job.