Lurgan, and the linen trade

Samuel Lamont and Sons was founded in Lurgan, County Armagh in 1835, by the man whose name it carries, and in the company's own words became one of Northern Ireland's foremost linen weavers. The limited company was registered in 1924. Nearly two centuries on it is still wholly owned and managed by the Lamont family.

Linen built the house, but the product that made its name came later. In the 1950s Samuel Lamont moved beyond pure linen weaving into textile printing and terry towel manufacturing, and that is where the Poli-Dri comes from.

Forty years of the Poli-Dri

Samuel Lamont developed the Poli-Dri more than forty years ago and trademarked the name. In that time it has built a reputation that very few kitchen textiles ever manage: it is widely regarded as the best tea towel you can buy, bought on recommendation, replaced by the same people over and over, and held up as the standard other tea towels get measured against.

Reputations like that are usually built on one good decision, and here it is the weave. A flat woven tea towel has a smooth face with nowhere for water to go, which is why it pushes a puddle around a plate instead of lifting it. A terry weave stands loops of yarn up off the ground cloth, multiplying the surface area many times over, so the cloth takes water up rather than shifting it.

The company's own description is that the Poli-Dri's design incorporates a terry towel weave, making it extremely absorbent and long lasting, and long lasting is the half people underestimate. These are still drying glasses years and many hot washes after most tea towels have gone thin and grey. It measures roughly 50 by 70cm with a woven border, and the printed patterns come out of the company's own art and design department.

What we carry

The Poli-Dri tea towel in the plain colours, which is what most kitchens actually want: white, black, grey, blue, red, burgundy, green, hunter, beige, gold, honey and lavender.

Then the printed ones, which are the same towel with the design department let loose: cats, chickens, cherries and a Santa for December.

And the rest of the Poli-Dri range in black: a chef's apron, a waist apron, a double oven glove and a gauntlet glove.