On Set: Scarborough 1264

 This week we are shooting interior scenes on the Scarborough Set.  We are using unbleached linen for bedclothing and sheets - which works well with the wooden interior shadows and flickering candlelight. Ordinary clothing would have been unbleached or dyed with Woad to give shades of blue. 

Below are a couple of exceptions. Gemma (about to go herb collecting outside the town walls) is wearing a leather overdress while Carlotta (about to clerk for the Burghers) is wearing a weaved pattern dress with a red/blue dye obtained from boiling the roots of the Madder or Bedstraw plants. This practice dates back to earlier Saxon times and was less common because it required a mordant (a fixing agent such as alum, copper, iron, salt, cream of tartar or club moss) to stop the dye running. Weavers (such as Tansey, last image) may have chosen unbleached linen for workaday clothing.

A shout out to Fateme Shamloo who prepared the original design for Carlotta's dress.