51/857

This ring-shaped fire steel would be struck with a flint to make a spark to ignite tinder and start a fire. It is of the type in common use from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and came from Berkshire.

1 O-shaped fire steel: tempered steel

MERL 'Catalogue index' card – 'This elongated O-shape fire steel is like 51/1209, a common English type of steel of the 16th to the 18th century. Any of its side [sic] may be used as a striking edge for it is a perfectly plain oval piece of tempered steel. It measures 3.6 inches in length by 1.9 inches in width. It came from Berkshire [this could include areas, such as East Hendred, which are now in Oxfordshire]. // See also 51/1209', MERL 'Catalogue index' card – 51/1209 – ‘Ever since man acquired the art of smelting iron, the flint and steel method of obtaining fire has been in use. This was the method used in connection with the tinder box, in which the necessary material consisted of a well tempered piece of iron and steel, a piece of flint and some tinder. As the flint is struck against the steel a small fragment of white hot metal falls onto the sensitive tinder, igniting it. The actual fire was obtained by the aid of a sulphur match. // This is of a type in common use in England from the 16th to the 19th centuries, although most of them were probably 18th century in date.’, No Lavinia Smith No. recorded.

1700-01-01 - 1799-12-31

Eighteenth century

Rippon, Miss Dorothy May Lyddon (Agent)