Quest for the UK’s golden fleece ends on island
ANGLESEY COUPLE PRODUCE UK’S FINEST WOOL
A SHEEP fleece produced on Anglesey has been named Britain’s best in 2016 for the quality of its wool.
The fleece, from a Bluefaced Leicester ewe, was produced by Gaerwen farmers Myrfyn and Jayne Roberts.
It was adjudged the UK’s “Golden Fleece” in a national competition run by the British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB) in association with JG Animal Health.
BWMB chief operating officer Mark Powell, who judged the eight shortlisted entries, said the winning fleece was an outstanding example.
“It displayed everything I was looking for in terms of style of wool, uniformity of quality, strength of staple, colour and presentation,” he said.
“It was clearly from a producer who takes pride in their wool crop,” he added.
This year the Wool Board revived its annual Golden Fleece competition to highlight the quality of the 12m fleeces it handles at its depots each year.
The name was borrowed from Greek mythology in which the Golden Fleece came from the gold-hair winged ram. It featured in the story of Jason and his band of Argonauts.
Two fleeces from each home nation were short-listed for the final – one traditional carpet type fleece and one speciality/knitwear type.
In Wales, Mrs C Lewis from Lampeter, Ceredigion, won the carpet category with a Mule fleece, while the Roberts family from Gaerwen triumphed in the speciality section before being named best overall.
Jayne and Myrfyn farm 70 Bluefaced Leicester ewes at Myfyrian Isaf, along with 1,100 Welsh, Suffolk x and Texel x mules.
The couple are noted Bluefaced Leicester breeders whose success over many years is now being repeated by son Gareth, who won the hill supreme title at this summer’s Anglesey Show.
Jayne said it had been an honour to reach the final, let alone win the competition.
“We really didn’t expect to even get this far,” she admitted.
“We take pride in the wool we produce but didn’t think we’d have a chance of winning such a prestigious national competition.”
The competition was open to all producers marketing their wool through the BWMB. Champion fleeces from 12 regional agricultural shows were entered to the four country finals with the winners short-listed for the UK final.
BWMB chairman Ian Buchanan confirmed the competition would be repeated next year after an “encouraging”