ESWICK’S historic place at the heart of global pencil-making began in Borrowdale in the 1500s, when a Cumbrian shepherd discovered clumps of a soft, black substance in the roots of an upturned tree. He began using it to mark his sheep and the practice caught on. With characteristic lack of pomposity, the Lakeland farmers called this handy stuff ‘wad’. Sixteenth-century scientists concluded that wad was some form of lead and dubbed it plumbago (Latin for lead ore). It wasn’t until nearly 200 years later that a, meaning to write, draw or record).
