It's been a bumper crop this year on the three-acre plot at Wakelyns Farm - an organic agroforestry operation at Fressingfield, near Stradbroke.

Claire O'Sullivan and Kitty Wilson-Brown set up The Contemporary Hempery three years ago after a chance conversation.

SIGN UP HERE FOR YOUR WEEKLY FARMING SUPPLEMENT

Kitty Wilson Brown at her dye garden where the plants are grown to be used to make the dyes for the hemp fibres. (Image: Denise Bradley) They want to revive the hemp industry in the Waveney Valley. In the pre-industrial age up to the 18th century, the region was a centre of hemp cultivation, as well as of hemp hand-spinning and weaving.

The cloth produced from the plant was used in a wide range of textiles from sturdy work clothes to fine table linens and undergarments for the super-wealthy.

The industry held out into the last century in a few remote outposts.

More: Anglian Water agrees to £62.8m redress package after Ofwat wastewater probe

Volunteer Bee Gardiner strips some of the leaves off as the hemp is harvested at Wakelyns Farm at Fressingfield (Image: Denise Bradley) Buckenhams at South Lopham is thought to have been the last hemp weaving company in the region before it closed in 1925.

Claire is a jeweller who owns the Old Baptist Chapel at Fressingfield. She runs a community art space called Chapel Hall Arts as well as letting out the hall for events.

Kitty is a textiles graduate from Cornwall she has known for many years, having spent 20 years there before moving to Suffolk.

"We became really good friends," explains Kitty, 26, who took up a residency at Wakelyns Farm a year........

© Eastern Daily Press