From the outside, the whitewashed stone workshops nestled in the Welsh countryside look remarkably similar to how they appeared a century or so ago, when the Melin Tregwynt wool mill was established. But step inside the facility, where some of Wales’s most striking fabric designs are made, and you’ll see that a quiet transformation has taken place – and a new yarn on how to overhaul the business model of a heritage brand is being spun.

Melin Tregwynt’s 40-plus employees recently became the mill’s indirect owners, when it was transferred from the Griffiths family’s ownership to that of a trust for employees. “They weren’t quite sure what they were letting themselves in for,” says Eifion Griffiths, the third generation to run his family’s mill. “We knew that we were getting ready to retire,” says Eifion, who took over the company from his father with his wife, Amanda, in 1986.

“We don’t have children so we haven’t got anybody to pass it on to,” he says. “It is a big deal passing a family business on.” Selling the company outright felt like the wrong decision. “It would have been very difficult to see it being run by somebody else,” says Amanda. “This is a sparsely populated area so we are a focal point in terms of employment. We’re knitted into the community.”

The restructuring has allowed production to continue uninterrupted (five looms produce more than 1km of fabric per month), while ensuring that there is flexibility and time to develop new designs, collaborations and additional products, such as a collection of premium Melin Tregwynt yarn for home-knitters to weave with, which is currently under development.

“It is very important to evolve all the time because you don’t ever want your business to turn into a museum piece,” says Eifion. “In the world of smaller businesses such as ours, there has to be some room for natural growth and this feels like a better, more modern way of passing our business on.”
melintregwynt.co.uk