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With more than 150 years of history, craftsmanship, and local ingenuity woven into the fabric of its business, Waverley Mills in Launceston is a surviving symbol of another time.
It all started with the vision of a Scottish migrant, Peter Bulman, who launched the fully vertical woollen mill and started selling the first woollen goods made entirely on Tasmanian soil.
So much has changed since then — including the rise of fast fashion and offshore manufacturing, to name a few — but throughout it all, Waverly Mills still operates on the same site where it began back in 1874.
Today, it’s the only mill in Australia that manufactures wool textiles that are spun, woven and finished on site, from start to finish. And the weight of this legacy is not lost on its dedicated team. Just ask product and ecommerce manager Lindzi Mann.
‘We collaborate with Australian designers, or design in-house, creating a 100% Australian-made textile that provides local employment and stewards skills and craftsmanship that would otherwise be lost today,’ Lindzi says.
The factory is known as the last operating remnant of the Launceston textile industry, with many of the employees and expert weavers having worked for decades.
It takes about four weeks for wool to be transformed into a finished blanket, and now, Waverley Mills is giving visitors a rare peek behind the curtain of this painstaking process with guided mill tours, which include a limited-edition winter pack for those visiting during the Off Season.
‘The guided tour will take you through the whole process of producing a textile,’ Lindzi says.
‘As a society, we’re no longer connected to just how intensive textiles are to produce, and the tour gives people the opportunity to see just how involved and hands-on the process still is today.’
While Lindzi herself has only called Launceston home for the last six years (previously living in Melbourne and Adelaide), there’s a clear parallel between the riverside city’s unhurried lifestyle and Waverley Mills’ dedication to traditional techniques.
‘I love Launceston’s slower pace of life, and the way the seasonal shifts are so distinct,’ she adds.
‘My partner and I had only visited once before we decided to move here, and we haven’t regretted it. There’s so much to be inspired by, and no shortage of cafes to sit in on a rainy day.’
Below, find out some of Lindzi’s favourite restaurants, nature walks, and the gallery that everyone should visit on a trip to Launceston! Discover Lindzi’s picks, in her own words.
