The Village Cooper

Fülszöveg

Ken Kilby became a schoolteacher after twenty-five years as a cooper at a Luton brewery, where he was apprenticed to his father, the head cooper. His great great grandfather was a cooper in Banbury, where in 1863 his son established a cooperage. Ken Kilby has written two other books, T/?e Cooper and his Trade (John Baker) and A Town and Its Trades - Luton, 1850 (Bedfordshire Education Service). He is Vice President of the Tools and Trades History Society.
The Village Cooper
Wooden casks (what most people today would call barrels) are containers of exceptional strength, versatility and mobility but have become a rarity, displaced so completely by metal containers that it is hard to imagine their importance in former times. The coopers who made them were once numerous, employed by breweries and as independent craftsmen. Their craft was not only economically vital; it was physically demanding and required skill acquired only through years of practice. This book seeks to preserve... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Ken Kilby became a schoolteacher after twenty-five years as a cooper at a Luton brewery, where he was apprenticed to his father, the head cooper. His great great grandfather was a cooper in Banbury, where in 1863 his son established a cooperage. Ken Kilby has written two other books, T/?e Cooper and his Trade (John Baker) and A Town and Its Trades - Luton, 1850 (Bedfordshire Education Service). He is Vice President of the Tools and Trades History Society.
The Village Cooper
Wooden casks (what most people today would call barrels) are containers of exceptional strength, versatility and mobility but have become a rarity, displaced so completely by metal containers that it is hard to imagine their importance in former times. The coopers who made them were once numerous, employed by breweries and as independent craftsmen. Their craft was not only economically vital; it was physically demanding and required skill acquired only through years of practice. This book seeks to preserve the memory of their special skills, tracing the history of the craft and describing and illustrating how a barrel was made.
For thousands of years most commodities were shipped, moved or kept in barrels, because barrels were exceptionally strong, with hoops binding the joints into a form of double arch, and because they were themselves wheels, easily moved at a time when power was dependent on the muscles of man or beast. Without the barrel most goods would have remained where they were made or would not have been made at all.
*i- In medieval times a family would need buckets for water and milk, bowls for washing, dolly tubs for laundering, pickling vats, storage vats for flour and barley, a churn for making butter, tubs for cheese, and a vat and casks for home-brewed ale. These would all be made by the cooper and many of them would last a lifetime and become valued possessions.
•J* Although many people call any sort of cask a barrel, in fact a barrel is one which holds 36 gallons. Smaller ones are kilderkins of 18 gallons, firkins of 9 gallons and pints of 4.5 gallons. Larger ones are hogsheads of 54 gallons, puncheons of 72 gallons and butts of 108 gallons capacity. Vissza