The Horse in the Furrow

by George Ewart Evans

  In some counties the travelling blacksmith—complete with mobile smithy in a van—has been introduced to meet the need in areas where the village smith has disappeared altogether.

  1 Or sway-backed: ‘A horse is said to be sway’d in the back when, by too great a burthen, or by some slip, strain, or over hasty and straight turning, he hath taken an extreme wrinch in the lower part of his back below the short ribs, and directly below his fillets…. He will falter, and sway sometimes backwards and sometimes sidelong.’ (Gervase Markham, the seventeenth century writer on horses.)

  2 roughing: altering a horse’s shoes to enable him to walk on icy roads.

  3 traverse or partition: screened off portion of smithy where horses were actually shod.

  4 frog: the horny, elastic pad in the centre of the hoof.

  5 Fourteen days, ‘confined to barracks,’ as a punishment.

  6 cf. the phrase, ‘paying his footing;’ see A.O.S., p. 293.

  16

  The Harness-Maker

  Like the blacksmith the harness-maker has seen a great deal of his trade fall away from him during the last twenty or thirty years. In the days of the horse every town and most big villages had at least one harness-maker: the tradesmen now left in the county of Suffolk can be counted on one hand. There is, however, one harness-maker still working in this, the Stowmarket, district; and he has specialised all his life in making harness for farm-horses. Sidney Austin (born 1888) of Finningham took over his father’s business when he was a very young man and has kept it going ever since, completing a period of about a hundred years since the business was first opened. When horses were the sole power on the farms Sidney Austin had five men working in his shop: today he has one.

  During his half century or so in the harness trade he has chiefly been concerned with making the three main gears required by farm-horses. First the thiller or fill-horse gear,1 consisting of dutfin (or bridle), collar, seals (mostly of wood, also called the hames), saddle and breechings and leading rein. This gear had no traces, only a small chain2 fixed to the seals and hooked to an attachment on each cart-shaft. Next was the cart-trace harness (called, also, the hames- or hem-gear). This was practically the same as the fill-gear except that it had a cart-trace leather instead of saddle and breechings. The cart-trace back or leather was fitted to the top of the collar and, ran down the centre of the trace-horse’s back: it was a broad band of leather about four inches wide. On the cart-trace back decorative sewing, done to a traditional pattern, was the rule. A pricking iron—a chisel-shaped implement with points or teeth at regular intervals on the blade—was first used to mark out the pattern and to ensure that the stitches were uniformly placed. The back also had an octagonal brass-plate as a decoration. The traces for the leader or trace-horse were chains weighing between sixteen and twenty pounds a pair. A set-stick, three feet ten inches wide, was used with the trace-gear to keep the chains apart and prevent them from nipping the horse’s flanks. When he was in the plough the whipple-tree prevented this from happening.

  Lastly, he made the plough-harness. This was made up of collar, with seals, dutfin and a simple plough-back, a light leather band fixed to the top of the collar and running down the horse’s back to the crupper, and having a transverse piece of leather across the haunches. Fixed to this, on one side only, was a metal loop through which passed the cord or rein: the other cord passed through a similar loop in the harness of the horse working alongside. The traces in the plough-gear were also chains, and weighed between seven and ten pounds.

  Cart head-stalls—called head-collars when made for light horses—were made of leather 1½ to 1¾ inches wide. The horse wore the head-stall in the stable, also in the meadow if he was difficult to catch. The hames or seals were fastened at the top by top-bands or top-latches, and at the bottom by throat-bands or throat-latches. These are bands of leather, once cut in the shop from the half-backs—a hide cut in half; but now they are machine-cut in the factory. They used to cost twopence each: today they are sold at four shillings. This difference in price is also shown in the cost of relining a cart-horse’s collar: fifty years ago it cost half-a-crown; today, thirty shillings. The same kind of woollen cloth, called collar-check, is still used. Arthur Pluck, the Stowmarket clothier, recalled the old type of collar-check: ‘It was a rough flannel—a union type, about 75% wool and 25% cotton; a mixture for hard wear. The traditional check, which was about an inch and half square, was red and navy blue against a natural wool background. I can remember my father lining the old horsemen’s sleeved waistcoats with this collar-check. It gave them extra warmth.’

  Occasionally Sidney Austin made show bridles and rollers—the broad, leather bands around the stallions’ girth. After a stallion had finished travelling, he was sometimes castrated and put to work on the farm. A special collar had then to be made for him as the ordinary collars were too small. The biggest collar the saddler was ever called upon to make was a 32-inch one (this is the inside measurement, a line from withers to throat). But the average stallion’s size was a 28-inch collar, while for the average gelding or mare the collar was in the 23–26-inch range. Often, however, a stallion lost weight so rapidly after a few month’s working on the land that a second, smaller collar was necessary—so quickly was high-necked dominion tamed by the daily grind of the plough.

  Sidney Austin confessed it was a very difficult job to measure a horse for a collar: he preferred keeping a good stock of collars of varying sizes, and trying half a dozen or so of these on a horse until he was suited. In this way he got as good a fit as if the collar were specially made. He also made an amount of donkey-harness when the donkey was popular in the Suffolk villages. A donkey’s harness was not unlike a small pony’s. But it had one big difference: a donkey’s head is so large that, if an ordinary collar were made to slip over it, the collar would be much too big for the neck and the shoulders; therefore a breast-collar—a thick band of leather across the breast—was used to take the draught.

  The farm- or cart-horse collar was stuffed with straw, as it still is today, and padded with collar-flock, coarse, purple-dyed wool made from old rags which have been torn and shredded up. As one watched a collar being repaired with flock in Sidney Austin’s workshop, the flok of an earlier chapter came to mind; and it was not difficult to picture the fifteenth century Norwich carter doing a similar job after his long and wearing trip to Ipswich.

  When the harness-making business was in its hey-day, the shop—like the smithy—was the meeting-place for farmers in the district. They were continually calling to have jobs done or merely to have a chat. The harness-maker remembered one particular farmer who always insisted on having the collars for his horses made in a special way—with extra padding at a certain point. This meant extra work, and the collar-makers did not accept this attempt to alter the traditional pattern of their job with very much grace. The farmer knew this and spent long hours leaning over the half-hatch door—which still remains—on the surface, just chatting idly, but in reality keeping an admonitory eye on the way his collars were being re-lined. The collar-makers always rejoiced when that particular farmer’s harness had been completed.

  Some farmers, however, arranged to have their harness repaired at the farm. This was usually done just before harvest, a suitable time for two reasons: there was a lull in the farming rhythm at this period and therefore little of the harness was in use; again, it was being checked at a critical time, just before it would be submitted to the greatest strain of the year. The harness repairers packed all their gear into a trap drawn by a pony and made their way to the farm. ‘It was a job remembering to put every tool we needed in the trap; but we used to manage somehow. We generally spent two days at a farm, and perhaps another day at an ‘off-hand’ farm belonging to it. We repaired the harness in a barn; and as soon as we’d finished with a set the farm-workers oiled it with black harness-oil. We looked forward to going out to the farms: it was a break from work in the shop. They looked after us well, giving us tea,
and beer for those who wanted it, home-brewed beer. I didn’t use to take it myself but I recollect some of it when I first went out to the farms as a lad of sixteen or seventeen. One of the men showed it to me: it was thick as treacle, almost too thick to pour. They used to put lumps of beef into it after they had made it and were ready to cork it down for harvest: the beer would eat the meat right up, feed on it, as they used to say.’

  But one of the pieces of horse-equipment that has not been seen in Suffolk for years was sold from Sidney Austin’s shop: this was the straw-hat once worn by the farm-horse. They were not, however, made in this district. The hats were often worn at harvest time, as much—one suspects—to add colour to the scene as to prevent the horse from getting sun-stroke. Yet some farmers held that the straw hats attracted the flies away from the horses’ eyes and face, thus preventing them from getting restless while, for instance, the corn was being loaded on the wagon. The netted ear-caps, decorated with picturesque coloured tassels, which sometimes enclosed the horse’s ears, also served the same purpose.

  As often happens, however, one of the most interesting links with the past is in a word connected with the craft: ‘They used to call us knackers years ago, because we used to dress our own leather: the horse-slaughterer—knacker, as he’s called today—and the harness-maker were in one business. The harness-maker took the whole hide and dressed or tanned it himself. Most of the leather used in the harness-business today is ox-hide, though, not horse-hide. But we do use some horse-leather. I’ve got a piece of white horse-leather here: we use it for stitching up collars and making a good firm job.’

  Arthur Chaplin had also heard both usages of the word knacker:3 ‘Thet owd harness will hev to goo to the knacker’s;’ and, in discussing an old horse: ‘I’ll give you a knacker’s price for him—£1 a leg.’ It appears that £4 was the average price given for an old horse by the knackers. Sir John Cullum in his eighteenth century parish history notes that that the word was used for ‘the person who makes harness, collars and leather furniture in general for the farmer.’

  One product of the horse-slaughterer’s has not been forgotten. After the horse-flesh had been boiled the grease was preserved and found its way back to the farm for use on the wagons. The horse-grease was considered much better than the manufactured grease of later years. ‘With the knacker’s grease you’d only need to grease the wheel after two or three journeys: with the processed stuff they’d be a-shrieking after one. It used to froth up in the hub of the wheel and would last a long time.’

  The same horseman contributed a note about the buckles on the harness: ‘There were two kinds of buckles: the old kind, made of iron, and the brass ones which were much better. The iron ones became rusty and got hard to undo; and this was a big fault if you were in a muddle and got a horse down and wanted to get the harness off him quickly. This happened sometimes when you were on a muck-hill. If the muck had rotted up, occasionally the horse went down up to his knees, then he’d lunge forward with the load right on top of him. You got the harness off right quick and got a trace-horse to hitch to the back of the cart to pull it off him, or else your horse would soon get smothered. I’ve had to cut the top-latch to release the seals because I couldn’t free him in any other way; or with a hammer and a cold chisel cut the staple holding the saddle-chain to the shaft because the horse’s full weight was on the side where the chain was usually slipped off. “Horse down on the muck-hill!” was a cry you’d have to attend to pretty quick; and it made the job easier if the harness had all brass buckles.’

  Most harness-dealers kept whips which the horsemen bought as part of their own equipment. As a rule each horseman had two or three: ‘a good top-whip—the long whip—cost seven-and-six, which was a lot o’ money; but it was a useful whip to have to reach the leading horse in a team. A brass top-whip, without a lash, was no good for anything, except show and to keep the flies off—a good decoration. The short-handled whip—with a heavy, corded leather lash and a small length of huntsman’s cord, knotted, at the end of it—was the larner, the night-school whip. You could keep a horse awake with this.’ This is the whip the horsemen used to make the spectacular crack: ‘If you knew how, you could crack it on a frosty morning so you could make echoes ring in the trees along the roadside.’ Using this same whip the horsemen also held competitions in the stable: ‘We used to

  set up a pin on a door, and if I couldn’t put thet pin down after two lashes of my whip, I’d drop the whip on the floor. Standing at the right distance from the target was the trick.’

  In discussing the different gears used by farm-horses one horseman pointed out that in his early days there were very few double-shafted wagons about: ‘But some horsemen preferred to have the single shaft even when there was a double-shafted one to be had: they’d take the second shaft off. My father used to do this and harness his four horses at length. When he had them all this way there was no hope of reaching the leaders with a whip. All had to be done by command—obedience to the word of mouth. To get your horses trained for this you had to have plenty of patience—you had to talk to ’em, talk to ’em all the time. They understood. Four at length was a test of management and training. For instance, if you wanted them to turn off the road into the homestead gate, the leading two or three horses had to be trained to pass the gate some bit before they stopped. They then came back round and through the gate gently. There ha’ been a pretty muddle if they’d turned straight in as soon as they come to the gate-post.’

  The skill needed to manage a team of four horses at length was often displayed in the show rings. Teams at length entered the ring with two grooms walking on the off-side of each team. There were no driving reins and the horses were controlled by two whips—one placed over the crest of the second horse, the other over the crest of the leader. The team did evolutions—figures-of-eight and so on—in the ring; and it was a point of honour that no part of the horse or the harness was touched by hand, all control being by slight movements of the whip, and whispered words of command inaudible to the crowd. These displays by teams of four at length were kept up until the ’Thirties.

  It is worth recording that a team harnessed in this way was named in Suffolk: the lead or forhoss or forhust (fore-horse); the lash-hoss; the pin-hoss (the body in some counties); and the thiller, or shaft-hoss.

  1 A.F.C.H., p. 224.

  2 The fill-bells or tug: A.O.S., p. 292.

  3 ‘Sending one for “a pennorth of knacker’s brandy”, alias strap-oil is a favourite joke on 1st of April’ (A.O.S., p. 295); knakkr (Icelandic) meaning a saddle.

  17

  Additional Horse Gear

  Included in this section are those pieces of farm-horse equipment not already touched upon. In his sixteenth century list of Husbandly Furniture in the Five Hundred Points, Thomas Tusser wrote down items of farm equipment that were in use in his day. Much of this equipment was used in Suffolk until recent times: in the first of the following two verses the items mentioned are concerned with farriery and harness-repairing:

  A buttrice and pincers, a hammer and nail

  and aspern, and scissors for head and for tail

  Whole bridle and saddle, whitleath and nall

  with collars and harness for thiller and all.

  A buttrice is a knife, an aspern a file. Nall (cf. nadder for adder) is an awl. Whitleath is white leather—leather dressed with alum. Sidney Austin, the harness-maker, still uses strips of whitleather to repair—with the help of an awl—the collars of farm-horses as already stated.

  A pannell and wanty, pack-saddle and ped

  a line to fetch litter and halters for lead.

  With crotchets and pins to hang trinkets thereon,

  and stable fast chained, that nothing be gone.

  A panel was a ‘kind of rustic saddle’; a ped was a pannier or basket, usually slung in pairs over a horse’s back; a wanty was a broad girth of leather by which the load was bound to the back of a horse.

  An item the working horsem
an often carried with him in the field was a false-or split-link. If a chain or trace broke, a false-link was at hand to repair it. ‘They were something like a key-ring in design only they were the same shape as the trace-link. We used an S-hook in a similar way. The ends could be nipped together to form a false-link; but we didn’t usually do this on the trace. I had one on the horse’s bit so when he had a nose-bag, as the Shires used to have, I could prise open the S-hook and let the bit hang free so he could feed properly. We used to make ’em in the smithy before the ‘14–18 war, and sell ’em at a penny each.’

  Sometimes in the field a ploughman had difficulty with one horse working too close to the other, thus affecting his ploughing. To keep the horses apart he used a questionable device, called a tuttle-box in some counties. This was fixed on to one of the inside traces: by means of a pointed wooden pin, or even the sharp end of a nail, the horses were pricked in the flanks if they came too close together. ‘It were a cruel thing to do. They’d fix a nail or a piece of wire through the plough-trace—anything sharp to keep the two horses apart. I knew a horseman who once had a mare in his team. They’d stopped breeding on her; but when she was in season she used to lay over to the horse alongside her. The horseman fixed a nail in her trace—but it wouldn’t hev done for my boss to hev seen him—he’d hev had marching orders right quick.’