What is a Fulling Mill?
A fulling mill is one which undertakes the process of fulling. Fulling is the beating and cleaning of cloth in water. The process shrank the loose fibres of the cloth, making it a denser fabric. Superior cloth was usually fulled, dyed, brushed with teasels to raise the pile, and finally trimmed of loose threads to produce a finished surface of great quality. To begin with, fullers or “walkers” trampled the cloth with their feet in atrough of water. The widespread adoption of fulling mills in the 1300’s eventually took the fulling industry away from towns to heads of water in the countryside. Greater quantities of cloth could be processed more quickly. The cloth was placed in the fulling stocks with fuller’s earth (a soapy clay) and pumped in water. Here it was pounded with wooden hammers, themselves driven by a tappet wheel turned by the water wheel.
