North Pennines textile group – the LoLasses

In June 2025, workshops exploring textiles and heritage were held in Nenthead as part of the North Pennines National Landscape team’s Land of Lead and Silver project. Textile artist, Jenny Brook, led the community arts sessions which brought local women together to explore textile processes.

These processes included eco-dyeing and printing, cyanotype printing, and mark making with natural and recycled objects. Designs were further inspired by historical images, mining specimens borrowed from the Alston Moor Historical Society, local historical books and pamphlets as well as the region’s geology, minerals, and local flora and fauna. The individual experimental pieces were collaged into final textile artworks, which expressed the participants’ thoughts and feelings about living in a landscape shaped by mining heritage, which were exhibited at Bowlees Visitor Centre in October 2025.

The ‘LoLasses’ project follows on from these workshops and allows further exploration of the mining heritage of the North Pennines. The group is funded by a community grant from the North Pennines National Landscape, via the Land of Lead and Silver project which is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England.

The community grant provides two years of funding to cover equipment, materials, activities, and research trips with 18 funded places. The group meets monthly with skill sharing and research at the heart of the project. Heritage textile crafts and skills, including spinning, weaving, tapestry-weaving, batik, various printing and mark-making techniques, embroidery, peg loom weaving, rag rugging and quilting, as well as basket-making and pottery tile-making will be explored.

The LoLasses will be researching women’s role in lead mining, their homes and the clothing that they and their families wore with a focus on the fabric types and styles, and the heritage crafts that they used to create clothing and items for their homes.

The group are examining the effects of lead mining on the miners’ clothing by visiting Nenthead Mines. Material was prepared by folding, bundling, tying and pegging organic calico and other materials together with bark, rusty metal items, bark, pine cones or leaves, and dribbling or dipping in tea, coffee, and rust-coloured silk dye. The items will be left for two months to see how it is affected by the environmental conditions in the mine. The effects of tallow candles on clothing will also be explored, and the fabric, along with re-imaginations of the miner’s shirt, will be used to produce a contemporary art installation.

Following the visit to Nenthead Mines, the group have focused on weaving interpretations of the geological strata seen below ground and the rock formations/landscape above. Small slate looms were used for the purpose, warped with cotton or Herdwick yarn, and a selection of wools and threads used to create fabric pictures. Some of the pieces were exhibited at the Nenthead Mines art exhibition, funded by a North Pennines National Landscape community grant, in October 2025.

Future visits to the Bowes Museum, Weardale Museum, and Killhope Museum will look at historical textiles and there will also be three workshops each year from professional tutors. Julia Neubauer will be match-funding the project through free use of the workshop space at Brewhouse Studios and her time as facilitator. Future session topics and artists will be led by the group and its research and interests. Read more about the group here.

The work was part of the Land of Lead and Silver project which is led by the North Pennines National Landscape team and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players, and Historic England.