Woolly thinking

In the Middle Ages, the British Isles got rich from wool. It was always a pre-eminently wonderful material from which to make clothing, and many grand, medieval churches still survive, built on the back of profits made in the trade and the cloth woven from it. These days, Britain’s uplands are still speckled with grazing sheep, little spots of white on the green, but while a farmer used to pay most of the yearly bills with income from wool, sadly, it now costs more to shear an animal than you ca...