FLAX

For several years I commuted from Spalding to Peterborough to work. I did this often by train on a line that cut through the Fens from Lincolnshire into Cambridgeshire, from the silt fen farmland to the dark peat land. I particularly enjoyed train travel as it involved a regular community of commuters and enabled me to observe the land, fields and wildlife in a way that was not possible when driving.

Every so often on these commuting train journeys you would hear passengers comment upon the beautiful blue fields and contemplate what they were. Sometimes you would hear, “Oh look at those lavender fields.”  This would make me smile. On other occasions passengers would comment that , “Those fields must have been cropped today as they have no colour like they did this morning.” They not realizing that the sun had clouded over causing the flowers to close. The crop they were referring to was linseed, otherwise known as flax.

Linseed is a very ancient crop that has multiple uses and has been cultivated for thousands of years. Whilst flax has been present in Great Britain and Ireland for a very long time, and even grows in the wild, it is not thought to be a native plant, but rather it was brought to these Isles by human migration. However, when this occurred is not known exactly and varies from 4000 to 2000 years ago. In my lifetime I have seen it vary in fashion to be grown in the Fens. In both wet and dry years you often see more of it planted as it can cope with dry weather in particular and its relatively short period of growth to maturity means it can be planted later in a wet year, or replace a previously sown failed crop. It is also attractive in that it has relatively low input costs. Harvesting and handling it can be messy. The resultant seed is like a liquid. If you have a bucket of linseed and place your hand in it, it feels like oil running over your skin. This can make it particularly interesting for inexperienced hauliers or tractor drivers for if you brake the load continues to move.

In the Fens of and around South Lincolnshire there is a long history of growing linseed or flax, nowadays this is for seed, but the variety of flax plants and their use has varied greatly and at times the cultivation of this plant largely died out. When flax was frown commercially in the 18^th and 19^th centuries it was in key geographic areas namely: the Fens of South Lincolnshire and the adjacent Norfolk and Cambridgeshire borders, parts of Scotland and across the Irish Sea in Ulster. This was, at that time, not for the seed, but for the stalk to be processed into thread, most notably linen.

The modern growing of linseed is for the seed and the oil pressed from it that has various uses as an ingredient of putty, paint and varnish, a dietary supplement for humans and animals, and pharmaceutical use in particular skin and wound treatments. In the early 2000’s the Holkham Estate in Norfolk experimented in growing linseed to produce its own paint. Whilst it did not manufacture its own paint it did start to market its own brand of Holkham linseed based paint, albeit manufactured in Sweden. The reason for this change was that the painting of the estate’s vast amount of woodwork was only lasting six years, by reverting to a traditional linseed paint of the variety originally used when the estate was built this improved to repainting being over a 14 year cycle. The linseed we see grown in the Eastern counties has a short stem and is primarily grown for seed with the straw having a low value, but does hold a high calorific content when burnt in biomass boilers for heating. Indeed, my late father-in-law happily took away linseed straw for his personal boiler as it burned so well.

Going back to the nineteenth century and a taller variety of flax was grown for its fibre. Indeed, if grown for linen, the quality of the fibre could only be preserved by not allowing the crop to seed, for at that point the fibre has started to deteriorate. The highest value use of flax fibre is in the manufacture of linen, but it was also used in the manufacture of high grade paper, most notably bank notes.

In the late nineteenth century the growing of flax in Britain nearly died out for three main reasons: the fall in the price of flax fibre due to increased imports from the continent most notably Russia; the large amount of manual labour required to cultivate, harvest [1] and proceed the crop; the importation and use of inferior seed that reduced quality. By 1907 most English farmers had never seen a flax crop grown in their lifetime. However, Ulster retained flax growing and the expertise in cultivating and processing quality fibres due to extensive linen mills located in Northern Ireland  and a global recognition of Irish linen as a quality brand that still exists today. In the 1940’s, pre-NHS, an Irish gang-worker fell ill and was nursed to health by my grandmother at Twenty in Lincolnshire. When the young lad returned home his grateful mother sent a length of Irish linen as a thank-you to my grandmother.

The mid eighteenth century saw the development of flax processing at a commercial scale in the fens of South Lincolnshire, whereas in the past it was taken away from the area to be processed. In December 1746 we see Thomas Ives producing sacks and cloth products from locally grown flax as advertised thus:

“Thomas Ives of Spalding in the county of Lincoln having erected a factory which employs many hands, and in time may be largely improved to employ a great many of the industrious poor in these parts, it being in a county where large growth of hemp and flax is, (which is carried many miles to be manufactured and brought back to us for sale). It will therefore enable him to sell the goods he makes as cheap as any parts of England: He has now got a stock of the following goods fit for sale, which once made is well assured, will give good content to both buyers and users of the same:

Four strike sacks, Five strike sacks,[2] Sacking cloth for Bell Bottoms, cloth for windmill and engine sails, cloth for tarpaulings for boats, cloth  for wagons, cloth such as is painted for carpets, cloth for ship sails and other vessels, drill for men’s frocks.”

The local flax growing and processing into cloth started to decline in the mid-1870’s and the end of this decade saw the agricultural depression hit hard in the Fens as a result of wet weather and cheap imports. In 1879 Messrs. Aitken and Co ceased to produce and trade flax and cloth from their mill near Surfleet Railway Station. They sold the mill together with all their farming livestock, implements and tools in September 1879. The impact of such a closure on the rural populations should not be underestimated as flax cultivation, harvesting and processing of flax was very labour intensive. This is seen in press comments in 1881 on the census of Pinchbeck near Spalding which attributed a net drop in the population of Pinchbeck of 154 persons largely due to the closure of the local flax mill that effectively employed  1 in 20 of the total local population. The Lincolnshire Flax and Hemp Company Limited of Crowle, North of Lincoln considered revival of the flax industry at Pinchbeck in 1898, but ultimately this did not succeed. However, the First World War saw the supply of imported cloth, especially cheap linen from Russia, cut off and in desperation the British Government was forced to inaugurate a scheme to revive the flax industry. Viability of this venture at Pinchbeck required a commitment by local farmers to grow 1000 acres of flax with 650 acres pledged very quickly, but the cultivation and manufacture pf flax and its resultant cloth was a very brief revival at the Pinchbeck flax mill and lasted barely a year with the mill closing again in 1919.

This possibly illustrates the fickleness of the nation towards the production of food and other produce by agriculture – in the case of linen Britain very quickly reverted back to importation  from Russia, France and Belgium. Free trade and the pursuit of cheapness of product works against independence and self-sufficiency that is a bedfellow of security of supply. [3]

[1] Flax had to be pulled carefully by the root by hand.

[2] This refers to the number of fibres in the weave increasing its strength and durability

[3] I describe a similar issue with the production of sugar in my book Marsh Fen and Town South Lincolnshire and Beyond available from Amazon.