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This is the head of an apple hook which, when attached to a long wooden handle, was used in orchards for shaking ripe cider apples from the trees to be put in the cider press. Nothing is known of its origin.

1 apple hook: metal; wood; good condition- only fragment of handle remains

MERL 'Catalogue index' card – 'Hooks such as this, fixed at the end of a long stick, were used in orchards to shake cider apple trees. By a violent shaking movement of the branch the rip apples would drop to the ground, ready to be picked up and placed in the cider press. In Herefordshire apple hooks are known as POTHERING POLES. // This apple hook, whose origin is unknown, has a total length of 13.6 inches. The crook itself has a distance of 4.5 inches from the tip to the corresponding point of the main body of the hook. A small upward curve at the end finishes off the hook. It is hafted onto a wooden handle by five rivets, and a small fragment of the wooden handle still remains, although it is sawn off at the same level as the bottom of the hook.', No Lavinia Smith No. recorded.

Wood, Metal

Rippon, Miss Dorothy May Lyddon (Agent)