The House on Crutches Museum - Agricultural Room
The Agricultural Room
The House on Crutches Museum | Kitchen | Town Room | Agricultural Room | Parlour | Local Artists
|
This room is devoted to the impact of agriculture and countryside pursuits on this small South Shropshire market town. |
This room, like all the rooms in the House on Crutches has its own curiosities and secrets.
The window to the left of the main door was probably inserted when the flying freehold, extending the room over the shut or passageway below, was built. A flying freehold was a way in which home owners extended their homes over public rights of way. Shuts (passages) were gated and closed at night to prevent access to the burgages (garden and land) behind the houses. It was illegal to block these passages during the day as horse drawn vehicles were not allowed to turn in the main street as this was likely to cause traffic jams. Instead they had to use the shuts and back roads to turn. As a result owners had to 'fly over' these passages in order to make rooms larger.
The south facing window is possibly the original window - the size and thickness of the glass shows us that it is made from the oldest glass in the building, possibly salvaged from earlier windows. Glass was expensive and was often recycled. Some householders actually removed glass windows to take with them to a new house!
The items in this room are from the museum's collection of tools used in agricultural work in and around the home and farm. Although there are examples of horse-tack, nothing displayed was either horse-drawn or horse driven. Everything required manpower and muscle. Mechanised farming began in earnest in the 1800s, leading to the introduction of steam driven machinery on the larger farms. On smaller holdings, largely because of the expense, hand operated tools and machinery continued to be an important feature of agricultural life until well after the Second World War. Manpower was cheaper and smaller farms simply could not afford large machines. Some farming tasks, such as hedge-laying, have never been effectively mechanised, and still rely on a knowledge of the old country crafts.
Tool Cupboard
There are many jobs around the farm that demand constant attention. A trawl through this robust tool cupboard reveals tools as diverse as a puncture outfit and a set of branding irons. This cupboard obviously belonged to a meticulous fellow who liked everything in its place, handy for when things needed doing with no fuss or delay. |
Rat Trap
There are no manufacturer’s marks on this huge rat trap which leads one to conclude that it was custom built. It may have been a collusion of farmer and blacksmith putting their heads together to come up with a powerful solution to a powerful foe. Judging from its scuffs and scars it was no stranger to the barn! |
The Blacksmith
Apart from shoeing horses a blacksmith had many other functions. He would have made nails, repaired plough shears, built gates etc. There are records of women blacksmiths in Shropshire. In fact South Shropshire boasts one even now. Until very recently she lived here, with her family, in Bishop’s Castle town. Happily she still works in the district keeping up those traditional links with our colourful past. |
 |
Sheep played an important part in the economy of the rural district surrounding Bishop’s Castle. Here we have two hand-cranked shearing machines which had shears attached to them. Sprung-steel hand clippers can also be seen. The last Foot and Mouth epidemic, that devastated many small farms, meant that no shearers could come onto the farmland for fear of cross contamination. Machines such as these were taken out of mothballs, greased up and put to good use.
|
Fleam Knife
Like farm machinery, all livestock had to be looked after. The fleam knife was an instrument used for blood letting. This was a technique, not confined to animal ailments, which entailed making a nick in the animal’s neck vein and allowing it to bleed. The theory was that the bad humours of the animal would be alleviated when enough blood was released. At this point the wound would be staunched by the application of a handy spider’s web! |
The Charm
Veterinary services were, and still are, expensive and any means of bypassing this cost was of interest to a 19th century farmer. As recently as the 1920s it was possible to buy a charm from a spell maker who would peddle these charms at the various fairs that attracted the farming community. This one was found in a barn wall at Woodbatch. After recording, it was carefully reunited with the old Fynnon Salts tin that contained it and returned to the now mended wall. You can’t be too careful! |
Cream Separator
This hand-operated device was an essential piece of dairy equipment. When the required speed was reached by the operator a bell rang and the cream was separated from the milk, ready for butter making. The hapless youth charged with this job couldn’t afford to slack since the farmer’s wife could hear when the bell stopped ringing! |
Dairy Yokes
Two 19th century yokes are hanging on the wall. Milking was carried out twice a day. The buckets were carried in pairs from the cow back to the dairy. The yokes were usually carved from willow for lightness. They fit across the shoulders and the buckets suspended from hooks on adjustable chains. |
 |
There are various items on display, the largest being the ‘man and boy mower’, made by Silens Messor, made around 1857. The under-gardener or lad pulled the heavy cast iron mower, while the head gardener or someone of equal experience, pushed and guided the apparatus in a straight line. There were several manufacturers of garden mowing machines. Amongst them a firm called Shanks. They made a larger machine, with more cutting cylinders, which needed a pony to pull it. More often than not, of course, there was no pony and so the lads became Shanks’s Pony!
|
Hedging Tools
All the items in this display are associated with the upkeep of the countryside, its hedges and ditches, its pathways and roads, its vermin and pests. Keeping livestock safe in the fields needed constant vigilance. To this end either walls or hedges were used. Hedging is the preferred system in South Shropshire and to keep a good thick low growth these hedges were pleached. This meant driving stakes into the hedge at regular intervals, splitting the trunks half way through and bending the split trunk to weave into the hedge and stakes. This promoted more growth low down, thereby preventing boltholes through which livestock could escape. This is prickly work and so protective clothing is essential. The leather pleacher’s mitts are stout enough not to allow the thorns to tear the hands and the gaiters protect the legs. |
Ditching Tools
Ditching is another time consuming but essential chore around the farmlands. Good drainage prevents flooded fields and so crops will germinate and grow to harvest. The hooked and rather pointed spade helps to reach down to the bottom of the ditch. And the thin tool is used to place drainage pipes in the ditch. |
Gin Traps
There are a number of cruel gin-traps hanging from the wall. These traps were used to catch the wildlife that ate more than their fair share of the farmer’s crops. Rabbits were the 'prime suspects' and in all likelihood, to turn the tables, probably ended up on the farmer’s dinner plate! When sprung, the trap's jaws would typically snap snap shut on the animal's leg often breaking it and if not, cutting through to the bone as the animal struggled. Happily they are now banned. |
©Copyright 2010 Bishop's Castle Heritage Resource Centre | Web design
and hosting 
Three
Degrees West
