also seen three-legged milking stools with elm seats. There was a multiplicity of cottage uses
of elm - including bowls, chopping blocks, and bellows boards. I have also seen massive
blacksmith's bellows, some three feet across made with sections of elm boards; also anvil stands,
wedges, and washing dollies. Occasionally the hames and often the cart saddles of draught
horses were made of elm. Thatchers' mallets and beetles were also made of elm. As far back
as the 16th century Dovercourt beetles were renowned for their durability (Lucy & Gould, 1911).
'Of all the elms that ever I saw, those in the south side of Dovercourt, in Essex,
neere Harwich, are the most notable, for they grow (I meane) in crooked maner,
that they are almost apt for nothing else but navie timber, great ordinance and
beetels; and such thereto is their naturall qualitie, that being used in the said
behalfe, they continue longer, and more long than anie the like trees in whatsoever
parcell else of this land, without cuphar, shaking or cleaving, as I find.'
(From William Harrison, Description of England, 1587)
More recently I have seen garden benches made of elm boards up to 2 in. thick, and also
copies, but smaller versions, of garden wheelbarrows made in elm. Such barrows were made
at least into the 1930's. Apparently also earlier this century second best dartboards were made
of elm, the wood being soaked in water every so often to close the holes up.
Elm wood lasts virtually indefinitely under water-logged conditions and this has led to a
number of specialised uses. The earliest reference to elm being used in Essex in this way is
found in Huggins (1978). At an excavation at Nazeingbury in 1975-76 of a Belgic and
Romano-British settlement three wells were found, two of which had linings constructed from
hollowed-out tree trunks which had been cut into sections. In one of the wells (Well 2) the timber
was positively determined as elm. The well had silted up; then some of the deposited material
was cleared out and a wicker lining or fence was inserted to hold up the rate of silting up and
finally a five-section hollowed-out elm tree trunk was inserted off-centre through the previous
deposit. The presence of Romano-British sherds in the fill and its proximity to a previously
investigated sub-enclosure date the well to the mid-part of the second century A.D. or earlier.
Elm was occasionally used for piling; there are records of its 14th century use as bridge piles
at Waltham Abbey and under the King's Chamber in Hadleigh Castle (Richens, 1983). Elm
trunks bored out with a spoon-shaped auger were commonly used as water-mains in the 17th
century. Such is their durability under persistently waterlogged conditions that they are still
being dug up in the late twentieth century virtually intact. A specimen of an elm water pipe
from the New River scheme of 1613 is to be found in 'Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge'
(Holmes, 1903-4) (Fig. 9). Elm water pipes have been recorded from Colchester and Chelms-
ford (Richens, 1983). Elm was also used for the same reason for the keels of boats, the paddles
of water mills, and in lock gates. Although I don't know of any specific Essex examples they
must surely have occurred.
Fig. 9 Elm Tree-Trunk Water Pipe (from Holmes, 1903-4)