Meeting Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal!

A little while ago, Sonja and Helena did something very exciting: They met Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal!

2025 marks the 75th anniversary of British Wool (also called the British Wool Marketing Board), the organisation that helps British sheep farmers sell their fleeces for a fair price and provides the links of British wool to companies working in fashion, textiles and other industries that might use wool in their products.

British Wool grades and auctions the fleeces of the over 30,000 sheep farmers they work with - and they ensure that all fleeces we use, for example, are fully traceable back to their origin farm!

To celebrate this birthday milestone, the Princess Royal visited the British Wool depot in South Molton (yes, just down the road from the Mill!). This depot is where all the sorting and grading of the fleeces happens, so it's essential to everything we do here at JAT. When they asked whether we'd like to come along and present a little table with our British wool yarns and fibre, we of course had to say yes!

I took the chance to ask Sonja to write up how she experienced the day – so over to Sonja!

Last week, Hels and I did something rather thrilling and very much out of the ordinary, we met none other than Her Royal Highness, Princess Anne. 

The Princess Royal visited our local British Wool grading station as part of British Wool's 75th anniversary celebrations. The grading station is right on our doorstep, about a five minute walk away from our mill. It is a cathedral of wool as it is where all the fibre from the West of England ends up being sorted. We have a tour of the grading station here on our Youtube channel if you’d like to take a look!

HRH Princess Anne was visiting the grading station to tour the facilities, meet all the folk working there, and unveil a plaque marking the 75^th anniversary of British Wool.

As we purchase fibre from the grading station, Hels and I were invited (along with two other companies) to come along and meet HRH Princess Anne and show her some of our wares. It was the opportunity of a lifetime!

We shook hands and then chatted with her for a little while. It was a real honour. She was impressively well informed about the wool industry and wanted to know what breeds we used, where our mill was located and how we created our shades. When we told her we used vintage machinery, she commended us for keeping the old traditions alive. It was a really lovely interaction and a real honour meeting her.

The day had a lovely energy to it and you could tell that everyone present was excited to meet HRH. We all arrived early, turned out in our best and waited for the moment of her arrival, drinking cups of tea and snacking on digestives. She was traveling via helicopter to just around the corner and then being transported the final leg via car with a police escort.

When she did arrive there was a real flurry of activity as everyone leapt to their positions. She took the time to greet everyone and you could tell she really enjoyed the tour of the grading station and had a passion for wool. She had a wonderful tweed suit on so was certainly dressed for the occasion!   

It was such a wonderful opportunity to showcase what we do here at John Arbon Textiles, and to share how the puzzle pieces of the British wool industry work together to create yarn like ours from fleeces graded by the British Wool Marketing Board. This day will for sure be remembered in the Mill!