51/21

Twisters were used for making straw or hay rope, often for use in thatching. Usually, two people were needed to make the rope: one person to feed in the straw or hay, and the other to hold the twister and walk backwards away from the feeder. They are also known as 'twiners', 'throw-cranks' or 'whimbles'. This twister was used by a Buckinghamshire thatcher.

1 straw rope twister: metal; wood; fair condition- split wood

Citation in publication [H. J. Massingham, 'Country Relics' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939)] - '...with the haybond-twister he had made many a straw-bond for his thatching...I have another of these haybond-twisters, with the intials S.H carved upon it, which is at least 100 years older that the one Mr Tipping gave me, and came from a county (Gloucestershire) which he has never seen. Yet in structure and shape the two are identical. That makes me think that Andrew Marvell's poem, Ametas and Thestylis Making Hay-Ropes, is concerned with just such a haybond-twister. The lines: Think'st thou that this Rope would twine // If we both should turn one way? // Where both parties so combine, // Neither Love will twist nor hay. // suggest the normal position assuumed by two persons twisting haybonds, namely, facing one another, one turning the handle and the other holding the truss in the hook. Haybond-twisters were used for thatching and hay-trussing, not for making strawbonds in the harvest field. Names for thatching tools are very local and so variable, and another thatcher who lived ten miles away from Mr Tipping's village called the haybond-twister a "wimble"...A single twist is adequate for rick-thatching, adroitly made to keep the fibres intact. The main object is to keep the weather out. ' (pp. 4, 7), MERL 'Catalogue index' card – ‘TWISTER [‘(Straw Rope) (Straw Rope Twister)’ Scored through]// DATE ACQUIRED: January, 1951 // GROUP: CRAFTS - STRAW- ROPE // NEGATIVE: 35/23 // PERIOD: Unknown // PLACE OF ORIGIN: The H. J. Massingham Collection // NUMBER: 51/21M // DESCRIPTION: This twister was given Mr. Massingham by a Buckinghamshire thatcher. It is similar to 51/20 but less well made and probably not so old. // Twisters were used for making rope of straw, and sometimes hay, for thatching and trussing. // This specimen is made of one piece of metal rod shaped like a crank with two wooden handles, one for holding it and the other for turning. There is a hook at one end for the straw or hay. The twister is 14 3/4" long.', MERL list / description [Massingham Collection, October 1989] – 'ACC. NO.: 51/21 // NAME: STRAW ROPE TWISTER // NEG NO.: 35/23 // STORAGE: '

Wood, Metal