Object number
98/44
Collection
Creator
Description
A billhook is an edge tool used in hedging, coppice work and other woodland trades, and show great regional variety with each area having its own accepted pattern and shape. This is a large billhook with a curved blade, and an additional blade on the back of the tool. The blade is stamped 'ELWELL 10'. It is possibly a Broom or Nottingham pattern. It is part of a collection of woodworking and stoneworking tools given to the Museum by Mr Stamp.
Physical description
1 billhook: wood; metal; generally good condition
Label Text
4. Billhook. The billhook was an essential hedging tool. It was used for trimming the stems and making a cut close to the ground so that they could be more easily bent around the uprights. Billhooks come in many different styles. This one, known as a Stafford pattern, has an additional chopping blade on the top. It bears the stamp of its maker: Elwell of the Wednesbury edge tool forge in Staffordshire. 98/44.5. Billhook. The billhook was an essential hedging tool. It was used for trimming the stems and making a cut close to the ground so that they could be more easily bent around the uprights. Billhooks come in many different styles. This one, known as a Stafford pattern, has an additional chopping blade on the top. It bears the stamp of its maker: Elwell of the Wednesbury edge tool forge in Staffordshire. In the 1960s, Elwells were still marketing nineteen different patterns of billhook. The business began in the early nineteenth century and rose to prominence under the grandsons of the founder, Edward and Alfred Elwell, who built a new works in the 1870s which was powered by five large waterwheels and a steam engine. By 1888, it was employing 200 people and producing over 60,000 dozen tools annually, including hooks, spades, shovels, picks and axes. The export trade was very important and special tools were made for the tea gardens of India, the sugar plantations of the West Indies and the cotton fields of America. 98/44.
Archival history
MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Museum of English Rural Life) – 'Description: Large billhook with pointed end curving in the direction of the main cutting edge. Additional blade on the back of the tool // Stamped: ELWELL 10 // Dimensions: Overall length: 43.0 cms // Associated information: Part of a collection of woodworking tools donated by Mr. Stamp. // No special information about any of these tools. '
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