14 March 2026, 2.00 pm Burridge Gardens Community Centre Dyeing
Monthly Guild Meeting AGM – Speaker Paul Henry Flax to Linen
Flax to Linen – Growing, harvesting and processing flax to linen in social plots, school playgrounds and museum grounds. Encouraging engagement with everyone from children upwards to learn about Linum usitissimum.
An overview of growing and processing flax and linen, both on a simple personal level but also involving many others and sharing the love and skills.
I have been working with flax and linen for many years and coming from Northern Ireland it was a very familiar textile to me as a child. Ten years or so ago I began work with 15 or so Inner London Primary Schools where a small area is put aside for the pupils to grow flax. I helped to start some local community flax growing plots in my own neighbourhood. I also work at the Weald and Downland Museum where I am the lead of flax. We try to use as many traditional practices there showing the public historical ways of working.