Hinkley is stocking country.

Oh, these days they make Triumph motorcycles, but historically the main industry of the town was knitted legwear.

Woven fabrics are great for suits, dresses, ribbons, sheets and curtains, but for something that hugs the figure and can deal with a bended knee or disguise cellulite in the thighs you need a knitted fabric, which will stretch and give.

As Heinlein said, “If you think rocket science is difficult, you should consider the topology of a knitted garment.” Back in medieval times, if you wanted to be a master in the knitters guild, you had to present a masterpiece: a pair of hand knitted tights. I was surprised how early this process was mechanized. The first knitting machine was made in the reign of Elizabeth I. The museum in Hinkley has one that dates from 1740 and is still in working order.

Knitting machines progressed from devices that could knit a scarf, like this one, to ones that could knit a tube. This is still not quite right for stockings, though, as legs are thinner at one end than the other, so you end up having to have seams in your stockings, or doing some very fancy knitting to combine loops that was beyond simple automation. Synthetic fibers in the 20th century changed this. Nylon fiber can be made to shrink or stretch with the application of heat, so a tube stocking can be heat shaped to fit a leg without having to change the number of stitches.

Hinkley produced underwear of other sorts for various brands including Mary Quant who definded sexy in the swinging sixties

(UK: suspender belt = US: garter belt)

The museum has other interesting items including a four-gallon tin hat…

… a Salvation Army trumpet…

… and What have the Romans ever done for us?

There’s a room of tributes to notable local women, including one you may actually have heard of.

The museum is housed in a thatched timber frame building that somehow managed to escape redevelopment by being the boardroom for the stocking factory opposite.

There is a lovely cottage garden at the back maintained by one of the volunteers.

Hinkley has a fairly large downtown shopping area and a bustling market which dates back to the 13th century. After hitting the charity shops and a hardware store we lunched on a local delicacy from a food truck…

… a hot roast pork and stuffing roll, complete with apple sauce. Salty but delicious. Sometimes life is like that.