JOHN BOYD
The town of Castle Cary was already a well-established textile town as early as 1327 for weaving coarse count linen fabric and rope manufacturing. By 1800 cottage workers had also begun to weave a horsehair cloth with a cotton warp. At this time the horsehair came from live local horses as it was the fashion to crop horses tails with the horsehair cleansed in the local pond. John Boyd, a traveling textile merchant from Scotland, saw a potentially expanding market for horsehair fabric and as he liked Castle Cary began weaving this cloth in his cottage. By 1837 John Boyd had become established and began to employ people to expand his output. Such was the demand for this hard wearing versatile hair cloth, that in 1851 John Boyd moved the process to his own specially built factory. The company became limited as early as 1883.
At the turn of the century, horsehair fabric was so popular that John Boyd became one of the main employers in the town, employing over 200 people weaving horsehair fabric. He contributed much to the town, building cottages for his workers such as Jubilee Cottages and Cumnock Terrace, and the Liberal Institute.
The horsehair fabrics were initially woven by hand. By 1870, John Boyd led and patented the development of mechanical looms where a mechanical picker was able to tease one hair from the tail. The tail must be carefully mixed and drawn through teeth of a large comb beforehand.
John Boyd Textiles produces historical designs and colours that date back to 1750 with new colours and contemporary designs added.
For instance, the blue/black horsehair check fabric was originally used by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the late 1800s for covering the Argyle Street Tearoom chairs.
John Boyd Textiles have been able to exactly reproduce the horsehair fabric with blue and black hair for the first time in over 100 years. The fabric is now called Dales, named after a type of horse like the other horsehair fabrics in their collection.
The Ermine black ER/601/1 horsehair fabric, still produced today, was originally used by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens for his original Napoleon chair made in 1919 which now can be seen at the V&A museum.
Horsehair fabrics can be seen to grace high quality projects in the UK and abroad, elegant hotels, architectural practices, exclusive boutiques and restaurants.
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