Technical Museum of Slovenia Collections

Presented in an annex of the museum beside the Bistra stream, the textiles exhibition – of which the fulling mill forms part – is as yet incomplete. Fulling, the process of cleansing and felting the cloth, is a very ancient craft which developed in certain parts of Slovenia with the advancement of sheep farming. Significant in the 19th century, it had died out as a cottage craft by the mid-20th century because of competition from industrial scale cloth manufacturers.

The water-driven stamp mill and mangle came from a small workshop at Lepa Njiva on the Libija stream near Mozirje in western Styria. The approximate age of these devices is indicated by the year 1818 etched into the mangle’s spindle, and they were used for felting cloth by their last owner, Ivan Keber, until 1951.