The Clothiers of Worcester made a broadcloth which had a high reputation in Europe and the Middle East for centuries. It was a woolen cloth of fine open twill-weave fabric which had been milled, (fulled and slightly felted). The cloth was smooth, velvety and dense, suitable for garments where the cloth needs to hang well. It was made from the finest wool in England - from the small Ryeland sheep of the Welsh border country, particularly from Herefordshire - that known as 'Lemster Ors'.
The Worcester cloth was in demand from the 13th century, and by the 15th, the Worcester Guild of Clothiers tightly controlled the trade, the quality, expansion, and the trade membership. All tradesmen's had to be apprenticed either as a weaver or walker. (The walkers were responsible for the fulling and finishing techniques). In 1553 Worcester obtained a statute forbidding the weaving of broadcloth beyond the City Walls- but the special fulling process, which seems to have been vital to the quality of Worcester broadcloth, was done up the Severn at Hartlebury. A 'Cloth Barge', regularly took the cloth regularly took the 'Staking House', on a narrow strip of riverside land, which was part of the Liberties of Worcester, and where nearby, was natural chemical bog water and fullers clay. The fulling, or walk mills, where the cloth was felted were sited on the River Stour and on Titton Brook nearby.
Daniel Defoe, visiting Worcester in 1727, wrote ' the number of hands which the wollen trade employs in this town and adjoining villages is almost incrdible'. But the industry in Worcester was almost at an end. The last shipment of cloth to the Staking House was in the late 1740s, and by 1750, the trade in Worcester appears finished.
Worcester had long had connections with the Orient, through the Levant Company (founded 1581), and several Worcester citizens served in Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East. Robert Luddington was a good example, whose memorial in Worcester Cathedral states: 'He travelled as agent to the London Company of Turkey Merchants' (of which he was one time Treasurer) through Italy, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Arabia, Caldid, Barbary, The Moluccas, the West Indies and mastered almost all their languages. All missions carried letters from Elizabeth 1, but the times were dangerous, and each journey must have been incredibly adventurous.
Two mills at Hartlebury Brook were mentioned in the Domesday Survey, both corn mills, but by 1302, the smaller mill ( probably Titton Mill) had become a fulfilling mill, particularly associated with the City of Worcester's cloth trade. This trade was regarded with such importance that in 1644, at height of the Great Civil War, army commanders on both sides were forbidden to plunder the Hartlebury fulling mills.
Please note some wordings appear to be spelling mistakes, these are written as per the day it relates to
