Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Devon Grows Flax announces five new Flax Towns
From Spring 2027, Flax Towns will be up and running in Barnstaple, Exeter, Moretonhampstead, Sherford & Honiton.
The Devon Grows Flax project aims to uncover, revive and embed heritage flax culture throughout Devon. A collaboration between Liflad CiC and Transition Town Totnes, it enables communities to learn heritage skills, to connect to each other and the land through shared experiences. Flax grows well in the South West and is the plant that produces fibres which can be spun into linen thread, however, flax processing is on the red list of endangered heritage crafts. We piloted community flax growing and processing in 2025, setting up a first flax town in Totnes, South Devon. This saw individuals and community groups grow 1m2 of flax in various places across the town, including in gardens, schools and communal spaces and some key community flax events took place. Thanks to support by the National Lottery Heritage Fund we are now able to set up flax towns across the county.
From Spring 2027, Flax Towns will be up and running in Barnstaple, Exeter, Moretonhampstead, Sherford and Honiton. Flax towns are geographic areas where communities come together to learn about flax growing and processing. A flax ambassador (a named representative from the area) receives training and expertise, and brings the knowledge and resources back to their community to oversee the process. Each town will hold a kick-off event with seed-collection hubs in the spring and a flax processing event in the autumn.
More information on flax town ambassadors and activities coming soon!
Our Recent Flax Celebration event at Ambios…
On October 10th we held our first Flax Celebration event at Ambios near Totnes. Over 100 people brought flax they’d grown or shared in the processing of community-grown flax. Attendees learned more about the project activities so far, take part in flax crafts and our flax spinning group, hosted by the Woolhub CiC, shared the skills they’ve been learning over the last few months. It was the perfect, uplifting get-together before our winter flax hibernation on public flax activities. We’ll return next spring with flax events all around the county.
To join the Devon Grows Flax newsletter and project you can sign up here: tinyurl.com/joindevongrowsflax
Images courtesy of Gary Winters
