Gansey Shore

Gansey Shore is a new exhibition of traditional seafarer's ganseys. Ganseys are rugged, warm jumpers hand-knitted 'in the round' and were common from the 19th Century up to the mid 20th Century. They were found not just along North Norfolk's shores but from the Scotland down the east coast of the UK right round to Devon and Cornwall, with a particularly strong tradition in North Yorkshire, the Humber, Norfolk and Cornwall. Ganseys feature distinctive patterns and motifs, though designs were very much up to the knitters and there was much crossover and adaptation.

Gansey Shore is staged by the Wells and Stiffkey Gansey Group, an informal group of knitters who meet every week at The Maltings in Wells and help keep the gansey tradition alive by creating their own garments to be worn or shown. They are an offshoot of the Sheringham Museum Textile Team and East Anglia Gansey Group, both of which have done much to document, record and preserve the Gansey tradition.

Gansey Shore is on at the Maltings Arts Centre in Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk on the first weekend of Wells Canival Week, 10am-4pm, 1st and 2nd August 2026. Entry is free... hope to see you there!

Info: Getting the gussets right is one of the more challenging things about knitting a gansey. They aren’t hard, but they do need some thought. We will be holding a workshop each day at 2pm called ‘Grappling with Gussets’ where we will try to explain gussets and the knitting of them as simply as we can.