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Story: Flax and flax working

Stripping flax leaves

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Stripping flax leaves

A worker feeds flax leaves into the stripping machine, which removes the green fleshy parts of the leaf and exposes the strong fibres. Usually another worker would be sitting underneath the machine, in the so-called ‘glory hole’, to catch and bunch the fibre. The shrieking machinery and slimy waste material made this job very unpleasant.

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Alexander Turnbull Library, Agriculture Department Collection

Reference: 1/1-007581; G

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Nancy Swarbrick, Flax and flax working – The flax fibre industry: 1860s–1930s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/10410/stripping-flax-leaves (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Nancy Swarbrick, published 1 March 2009.