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This is a gorse chopper, a tool used for chopping and bruising gorse for use as animal feed. The cruciform blade was used to chop, and the blunt wooden end used to bruise. Gorse was in common use as animal feed in parts of North Wales in the nineteenth century - this chopper is also thought to date from the nineteenth century.

1 gorse chopper: iron; wood

MERL miscellaneous note - 'Gorse-chopping Mallet // I have received one or two comments on the gorse-chopping mallet described in the Winter issue. H. de Heaume of Cranleigh, Surrey writes that gorse was in common use as a feeding-stuff in parts of North Wales during the last century. A mallet of the type illustrated is described in 'Our Farm Crops' written by John Wilson in 1859. He shows a mallet with a cruciform chopper on one end with the other end flat and explains that the gorse was first broken with the metal chopper and then bruised with the flat end. A large tree stump was normally used as a block. In some parts, on very poor land, gorse was cultivated and Wilson claims that it had been for centuries, He recommends drills 18"-24" wide which would provide good succulent food from November to April. Sometimes in Wales it was sown along the hedge banks, but this led to an increase in vermin infestation in the banks. // Owen Owen Roberts of Bangor in a prize essay published in the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society for 1845 comments on its frequent use in northern districts of the Principality as horse fodder. He maintained that many farmers found the quality of milk and butter superior from cows on a gorse feed than that from those on hay and turnips. He also described the chopping mallet and the cultivation of gorse on hedge banks. A farm horse of moderate size required 40 lbs. of gorse every 24 hours, and gorse properly tended and cut every second year would yield 20 tons to the acre.', MERL ‘Associated information’ form – 'Original owner H. T. Jones, Post Office, Talybont, Merionethshire. // Send to Mr Davis in response to his enquiry in a newspaper about the use of gorse as animal fodder. // [pencil sketch] // Age // 70-80 years. // I had an enquiry in a N Wales Welsh Weekly newspaper for information re latest survival of use of gorse as animal fodder. Amongst letters received was one offering to send me the mallet now forwarded - from a Mr H. T. Jones, Post Office, Talybont, Merionethshire. Sender knew of the family who had used it.'

1875-01-01 - 1899-12-31

Late-nineteenth century

Wood, Metal, iron