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History
New Lanark now produces a range of aran organic wool, double knitting organic wool, and chunky organic wool to standard UK weights allowing you to use it for all your favourite hand knitting projects. Our range of natural organic woollen yarn produced by New Lanark Organic Wool Spinners is continually being developed in line with the growing interest in organic yarns and organic wool products.  New Lanark World Heritage Site is now one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Southern part of rural Scotland with over 400,000 visitors in a year, and a major part of the experience is to see a mill floor which exhibits classic historic textile machinery. The unusual feature is that the working machinery forms a key part of our organic woollen yarn production process, so visitors can see our high quality organic yarn being spun.Opening in 1990 it was decided to create a specialist wool and yarn production unit within the framework of this world famous tourist attraction. In the main mill floor visitors experience the drama, rattle and noise, of a 392 spindle, 120ft long, 19th century, spinning mule, making 4 passes every minute. Virtually none of our visitors will have ever seen nor heard anything like it before. The machine was selected because it gives such a vivid impression of the skill, power, and refinement, of the wool spinning process.
.jpg) As well as providing a powerful spectacle the machine is being used by New Lanark Organic Wool Spinners for its original production purpose, to provide quality woollen yarn, which is ideal for hand knitting.Production level is at about 90% of the spinning mule’s capacity, so virtually every visitor is able to see, and perhaps understand, how such a sophisticated textile machine actually operates. While visitors see the mule in operation the mill also has ring frame spinning capacity. Virtually every stage of our specialist woollen yarn production process from blending to twisting is open to inspection in various parts of the mill.
At the start of 2006 the wool spinning production unit was the first in Scotland to achieve the Soil Association’s organic approval – Licence No: DK 17194.
Our certified organic yarn is spun to standard UK double knitting wool, aran wool, and chunky wool weights, which means you can use it for all your favourite knitting patterns, and you can buy wool online today.
.jpg) New Lanark mill has impeccable green and organic credentials. Our organically certified yarns are produced with minimal impact to the environment. Originally a water power site with a dozen water wheels, there is now one 24ft water wheel for exhibition purposes, and the water from the River Clyde is diverted through the historic headrace system to generate hydro-electricity. This is then used to power the mill, which has won a Gold Award from the Green Tourism Business Scheme operated by Visit Scotland.
The popularity of our speciality organic yarn has been steadily growing as word gets around that customers can now buy organic wool online. Whether using the yarn for hand knitting or machine knitting our customers return time and again for more of our specialist yarn. We welcome new customers who have been recommended our organic yarn by fellow knitters.
By buying yarn products online from New Lanark Organic Wool Spinners you help to care for the historic mill village of New Lanark. Thank you for your contribution.
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New Lanark is a historic mill village on the banks of the River Clyde in Scotland. Not the industrial Clyde that we all think of, but 25 miles upstream from Glasgow near the famous Falls of Clyde where the Clyde is a country river tumbling out of the Scottish Southern Uplands. The village was built as a new town in 1785, at the start of the industrial revolution, and it remains virtually unchanged. In 2001 it was awarded World Heritage Site status by UNESCO. copy.jpg)
The original mill was for cotton spinning rather than wool spinning and it survived from 1785 till 1968. In its time it had been among the biggest factories in the world, employing nearly 2,500. The village re-invented a new role for the future, with the introduction wool spinning which has become an increasingly significant part of our growing success. 
