In this series focusing on the region’s businesses and entrepreneurs, Jonathan Thompson from Thrings visits a couple who create unique clothing from alpaca fleece
“I’ve spent my life in wellies – I knew nothing about fashion,” says Alison Thompson, sitting at her garden table and proudly watching over her alpacas.
She still wears her boots, but Ali knows much more about the clothing trade now. Watership Alpacas, run by Ali and her partner Keith from their Andover farm, takes soft but durable fleece from their 30-strong herd and transforms it into timeless toddlers’ and ladies’ coats.
It’s a small, sustainable ‘field to fashion’ enterprise which brings together Ali’s former career as an agricultural scientist with Keith’s expertise as an engineer.
It all began when the couple were based near Watership Down, which gave the business its name, before they upsized to their current home near Thruxton Circuit.
“We had land and wanted to do something with it,” remembers Ali. “We didn’t want sheep or cattle, or to breed any animals to be eaten. We went to see some alpacas and they “hummed” at us, which is a good sign, and that was it!”
Alpacas bred at the farm are sold, often to other farmers who want breeding females, and occasionally to people who have an alpaca walking business.
The animals are sometimes shown at events, so the couple’s downstairs loo is covered in rosettes, and their fleece is consistently graded in the top third for quality in the UK.
The herd is sheared just once a year before the fibre is carefully inspected for quality and the best goes to a weaver in Wales to make cloth. A dressmaker then creates the garments from Ali’s designs, to be sold online and at markets.
“This is a way of living that's not demanding very much and not expecting very much,” says Ali, who remembers ‘running feral’ in fields with her brother as children growing up in the countryside.
“We do everything absolutely on a shoestring because we want to recycle anything we can, and what's the point of getting something new if you can recycle?
“In the same way, the alpacas naturally create this amazing product, and to not use it would be to waste it.”
True to that philosophy, Keith is forever tinkering with his decades-old Massey Ferguson tractor and wooden muckspreader, while Ali’s expertise helps manage the land with a very light touch, supporting a rich ecosystem of plants, insects and birds.
She fights a constant battle against buttercups, which alpacas won’t eat, so she spends hours in the field removing the plants by hand so they don’t run riot – but it’s not a job she minds doing.
“I come down here to remove the buttercups, sitting on the ground and listening to the swallows and the skylarks, she says. “What’s not to like?”
