51/31

This froe, also known as a fromard, is an 'L'-shaped axe, used for splitting timber lengthways into boards, segments or billets. The blade is sharpened on the top edge, so the tool was driven away from the user.

1 fromard: wood and metal [iron]; good condition

Citation in publication [H. J. Massingham, 'Country Relics' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939)] –' The tools for quarrying and slatting roof stone are few and, with one exception, extremely simple. They consist of a dressing-iron, a slat-pick or pittaway (the latter name is now obsolete), a slatting-hammer, a fromard and a slat-rule...[page break]...The fromard [page break]is a socketed axe-blade, long and very narrow. It is the only tool among them all that has served for other crafts than that of slatting, namely, for splitting ash-poles in hurdling and for finding the medullary ray, so much prized by the ancient wood-workers, in oak, beech, sycamore and sweet chesnut. As a slatting tool, the fromard, by means of a mallet called a "beater" struck with the right hand upon the blade, splits a small oak block tied round with a piece of string. This (with the sharpening of the peg at one end) was called "switeing" and was done twice and then twice at right angles to the first splits. By such means, the cleft oak pegs were made for hanging the slats on the roof-battens, and so, since to-day nails only are used, the fromard is the only tool in the equipment whoese day in stone-slatting is done. My set, except one of the slat-rules, belonged to [the donor], a stone-slatter, of Winchcomb, the tone of the Benedictine monks and of the Mercian kings.' (pp. 18-20) [see also p.69], MERL list / description [Massingham Collection, October 1989] – 'ACC. NO.: 51/31 // NAME: FROMARD // NEG NO.: 35/66 // STORAGE: '

Wood, Metal, iron