Saturday 4 July 2015

Lincolnshire Show 2015

Last week I made my first ever visit to the annual Lincolnshire Show.  I asked my Dad if he wanted to come along with me and so the two of us made our way to the Lincolnshire show ground last Thursday morning.  I gave him advance warning I wanted to check out the sheep and he happy obliged!


Lincoln Longwool
We spent quite a bit of time in the sheep enclosures walking up and down the pens looking at the different breeds of sheep.  This fine sheep to the right was happy to pose for photographs!  There were quite a few different breeds on show including a really large selection of my home county sheep, the Lincoln Longwool.  

This was the first time I had seen a Lincoln Longwool sheep in person and they are quite a sheep!  You may remember from the feature about Corriedale sheep, that Lincoln Longwool were used in the creation of the Corriedale.  You can certainly see why they were used, they are big woolly sheep! 




It was really interesting to see the different sheep breeds close up.  The Rare Breeds Survival Trust also has a stall where they had other breeds on show including Castlemilk and North Ronaldsay.  I loved seeing these in the flesh especially as BritYarn stocks yarn in these breeds (DK in the Castlemilk and Aran in North Ronaldsay).


Castlemilk Sheep



North Ronaldsay
What I didn't expect was purchasing yarn that day!  However, in the sheep area there was a stall promoting Lincoln Longwool sheep.  Members of the Lincolnshire Spinning Guild were spinning with Lincoln Longwool fleeces and available to purchase was some machine spun yarn in lace weight and DK.  Well I couldn't say no could I?  I had in mind Karie Westermann's new design Mahy so I bought six balls to make sure I would have more than enough.
Members of the Lincolnshire Guild of
Spinners and Weavers
There were lots of other things to see and do at the show including old and new farm machinery, various displays and lots of shops.  But for me the highlight was seeing the sheep and purchasing my yarn! 

2 comments:

  1. Isla did you see the Lincoln Longwool sheep on Countryfile the other week? Sorry I can't remember the exact episode but its part of an occasional series Adam Henson is doing about county-specific breeds and he started off in Lincolnshire.

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    1. No I didn't see it but someone else told me about it and I have totally forgotten all about it! Thanks for the reminder. I will have to see if it is still available on iPlayer.

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