Vintage Tools
by Dan, May 24th, 2010 in Country Crafts, In the Garden
When I was growing up in rural Hampshire, there was a hurdle-maker who lived at the end of the lane. Like his father, and his grandfather before him, ‘Lit’ Westbrook would work all week making traditional sheep hurdles from hazel coppiced from woods in the local estate.
I used to watch the hurdle-maker, hypnotised by his calm, steady movements and efficiently repeated actions. The tool he held most commonly was an old billhook which he used to expertly split the hazel rods before weaving them into hurdles.
This billhook looked like it had been passed down through generations of Hampshire hurdle makers – its blade was worn but still sharp, its handle polished to a smooth satin patina by decades of use.
Nowadays when I use a vintage garden tool with a similar hand-worn grip I can’t help wondering how many generations of gardeners have held this same old fork or spade. It’s easy to imagine that the tool itself has inherited some wisdom and skill from its masters over the years - and that in turn the vintage tool passes on this knowledge and expertise to anyone using them in the garden.
Do you have a favourite vintage tool you use in the garden, or a garden implement that has been handed down through your family? We’d love to hear about them.
I was looking for images of hurdle makers to include in my blog and came across your site. I know it was posted in May of last year but I wanted to comment because I was amazed to see the image of ‘Lit’, the man who taught me how to make hurdles over 30 years ago!
I lived in Herriard for about 4 years, firstly with Mrs. Leese the then Post Mistress, then down Bagmore Lane-numbers 6 and 10. It was an exceptional time in my life..making hurdles, planting trees, coppicing, mangle pulling and rolling up sheep fleeces and stacking bales of hay in the Squire’s Barns! Stoats and weasels, pheasants and moles and the still, peaceful rythms of a life at one with nature. I’d do it tomorrow if I could earn a living at it!!
Thanks for the unexpected treat…he was a lovely man and his wife ‘Beat’ was a real ‘card’ with her malapropisms, e.g. ‘onestly Den that fox was there memorizing that pheasant!’
Dennis, the trainee hurdle maker (PS I still have my tools: billhook, leather kneepads, small hatchet for chopping off the ends of hazel rods protruding from the hurdle, old newspaper for starting fires to burn the off-cuttings from a day’s coppicing; all securely held in the canvass army bag given to me by Mrs. Leese (her husband’s from the war!)
Ah me…