Object number
52/355/1-2
Description
Two wheel spokes made of cleft oak. From the a wheelwright's shop in Sompting, West Sussex.
These two wheel spokes are made of cleft oak. They came from the a wheelwright's shop in Sompting, West Sussex. They have round tongues to attach to the wheel's felloes (rim sections). The number of spokes to a wheel varies according to the number of felloes, but each felloe always accommodates two spokes.
Physical description
2 Wheel spokes: wood (oak); good condition
Archival history
MERL 'Catalogue index' card – ‘… // DATE ACQUIRED: // GROUP: // NEGATIVE: // PERIOD: // PLACE OF ORIGIN: // NUMBER: // DESCRIPTION: …‘ For the wheels, cleft oak is used because of its trustworthiness and long lasting qualities. The cleaving must follow the grain from end to end, so that there is little risk of the cleft spoke splitting in use as sawn oak might do. The spokes are carved to the wheelwrights pattern and fashioned with a draw knife, followed by the more delicate spoke shave. In order to give a smooth glossy surface that will take paint easily thay may be finished off with sandpaper. A square foot was cut at the bottom in order to fix it to the hub, while at the top a tongue, in this case round for fitting the felloes was shaped. In the past square tongued spokes were common but by the mid or late nineteeth century they had been largely replaced by round tongues. Sturt says (p.104) that the squared tongued wheel was far stronger then the round tongued, at least until the hoop tyres came in. The tongue was cut with a tenon saw and rounded with a chisel and mallet, the size being checked by a piece of thin oak with a hole in it to make sure it would fit into the auger hole of the felloe. The tongue cutting was done after the spokes had been fitted to the hub in the wheel pit. // The number of wheels to a spoke vary according to the number of felloes but each felloe always accommodates two spokes. // These two spokes came from the Wheelwright's shop of the late Mr G.W.Weller of Sompting. The first which has traces of blue paint on its measures 24 inches in length, while the other coloured red is 21 inches long. //
Production place
Sompting
Object name
Material
Associated subject
