Cloth
12oz cotton gabardine, double-woven and Millerain-finished for a rain column rating of 4,000mm before the first drop finds the lining.
Autumn Reissue · No. 41 of the Archive
The Wetherby Trench
Twelve ounces of double-woven cotton gabardine, cut on the bias across the shoulder so rain runs off before it finds a seam. Built for the walk from Chancery Lane to King's Cross in a downpour that wasn't in the forecast.
- Since
- 1897
- Woven in
- Castleford, W. Yorks
- Weight
- 12oz gabardine
- Price
- £1,180
The house check, registered 1954: camel ground, two chocolate bars, a single rust hairline, a single ecru hairline — crossed, never printed.
Built to a specification, not a season
Cut
Raglan shoulder, storm collar, belted waist with brass D-rings salvaged from the 1943 officer's-coat pattern.
Lining
Bemberg cupro in Ashcombe check, cut so the pattern meets exactly at the centre seam.
Made
Cut in Castleford, finished by nine machinists in a workshop that has not moved premises since 1961.
Care
Sponge clean. Re-proof with wax dressing every third winter. Never tumble dry.
House Archive
One hundred and twenty-nine years of getting wet on purpose
We test every coat in the rain it was built for. The pattern book below is the short version.
-
1897
Thomas Ashcombe registers the gabardine weave
A tighter twill than anything on the West Riding looms, woven for the wool trade's wettest customers.
-
1911
The Farrant Antarctic coat
Six coats supplied to the Farrant survey party. Two returned. Both still fasten.
-
1926
Cheapside workshop opens
The first cutting floor south of the river, twelve benches, one pattern master.
-
1943
Officer's pattern, 400,000 coats
The D-ring belt is born of necessity: a place to hang a map case, a water bottle, a torch.
-
1954
The check is registered
Camel, chocolate, rust, ecru — fixed as a mark, not a trend.
-
2004
The archive room opens to appointment
Every coat since 1897 catalogued by serial number, cloth batch, and original owner where known.
-
2026
The Wetherby returns
Reissued from the 1961 block pattern, unaltered but for a half-inch let out at the shoulder.
Weather Notes, London
Dressed for a city with 156 wet days a year
Drizzle — October to March
4°C–11°C, fine persistent rain, no wind to speak of
Wear the Wetherby open, collar up, over a heavy-gauge jumper. This is what the coat was drafted for: not a cloudburst, just the six-hour damp that soaks anything without a proper weave. Belt loose, hands free for an umbrella you won't need.
Downpour — sudden, any month
18mm/hr · Victoria line delayed
Storm collar up and fastened, belt cinched. The gabardine sheds 4,000mm of rain column before it wets through — a hard downpour on the Strand is well inside that margin.
Cold snap — January
Overnight low −2°C, dry east wind
Layer the wool lining insert underneath. The cut allows for a jacket beneath without pulling across the back — a half-inch of ease was left in the 1961 block for exactly this.
Try one on before the rain finds you
Fittings by appointment at 14 Cheapside, EC2, or by post from the Castleford workshop. Alterations included in the first year.
Book a fitting