High Weald Lund Fellowship: High Weald Farm to Fibre
3 November 2025
Isabella Goggin was born and brought up in the High Weald. Her technical background in garment construction led her to seek more ethical textiles, eventually leading her to practical work in farming and connecting with her home landscape. Bella was one of the first ever recipients of the High Weald Lund Fellowship, a new scheme designed to help people with a connection to the High Weald to gain knowledge and skills that benefit the community and landscape.
Fibres in farm diversification
Bella Goggin is using her Lund Fellowship to research the potential of protein fibres (wool and hides) as a viable option for diversification by farmers in the High Weald.
Her project is exploring the available infrastructure and routes to market for sheepswool and bovine leather and whether textiles could present income opportunities for pasture-based mixed farmers whilst also enabling the revival of rural craft-based and technical enterprises.
The Fellowship funding has allowed Bella to interview farmers, both within the Weald and further afield, with a focus on those who are farming with an ecological framework. She has also met with people working in related sectors – mills, tanneries, designers and traders involved in British textile production. She will share her findings via a report and presentation later in 2026.
‘I have gained deeper knowledge and connection’
Bella says, “Receiving the Lund Fellowship was a joyful moment. My application represented my path through two industries, textiles and farming, but also my relationship with the High Weald landscape which I have grown up in. So it was both professionally and personally meaningful to be awarded. It has given me a mandate to investigate; to speak to my local community as well as the wider national network in this sphere. Through the fellowship I have gained deeper knowledge and connection. I hope my findings will be useful and informative in how we could support local, ecological wool and leather”.
