head of a man who stands at the end to receive them. Each tray, 

 as it is delivered, is carried to the drying sheds. The balls are 

 allowed to dry in the air for about four weeks, and are for this 

 purpose transferred from the trays to wooden gratings arranged 

 in tiers in the roofed, open framework sheds, known locally as 

 ' ranges.' When dry, the balls are again ground up under the 

 rollers, and the material then conveyed to the floor of another 

 roofed shed, where it is sprinkled with water, and allowed to 

 ferment for a period of nine weeks. The shed in which this 

 process goes on is known as the * couching-house.' The ferment- 

 ing mass is constantly turned over by the workmen, and water 

 added from time to time. We were told that the fermentation 

 is at first very vigorous, the mass getting quite hot and steaming. 

 At the end of the process in the couching-house the woad is ready 

 for the market, and is simply packed tightly into wooden casks 

 for sending away. 



■■' The primitive character of the manufacture makes it not only 



of interest as a lingering survival of ; 



itiquarian and lo^ 

 from the mode of construction of the rough sheds, and from the 



but the antiquarian and lover of folk-lore may derive instructic 



technicalities used by the workmen. Thus the term * couching ' 

 is used in a similar sense by maltsters, and is no doubt a Norman 

 survival (Fr. Gaucher) : the sloping plank is called the • firm ' 

 (?form), and the tray on which the pulp is kneaded is known as 

 the ' balling-horse.' The balls were formerly dried on wattles, 

 known as 'fleaks,' a term apparently identical with the word still 

 used for hurdles in Scotland ; but these are no longer used at 

 Parson Drove. The central circular shed containing the rollers is 

 built of wooden planks and posts, and thatched with a conical 

 roof ; the lateral couching-house is constructed of thick turf 

 walls, with the slabs arranged in a peculiar herring-bone form, 

 and also roofed with thatch. The whole construction was 

 evidently framed with a view to cheapness and simplicity, so 

 as to be easily removable. In the palmy days of the industry the 

 sheds were not permanent erections, but were moved about from 

 one place to another, so as to be near the crops. 



"We content ourselves with recording the bare facts without 

 comment or criticism. Any science that lurks behind this 

 ancient manufacture has been found out empirically, and handed 

 down by tradition from a remote past. The imaginative person 

 may indulge his fancy by carrying back the woad industry to that 

 period when the early inhabitants of this country furnished that 

 solitary scrap of personal information which is still the historical 

 stock-m-trade of the average school-boy. It may be well, however, 

 to point out in this connection that Isatis tmctoria appears not to 

 be a native of Britain.* We were told that in former times the 

 woad-men were limited to certain families, and that they had 

 traditional chants of their own; but these are passing into 

 oblivion, and we we re unable to ascertain the words.f The 



Rrirjj* ?^ ' 5^?K* °^ *,^® ^"''^^ Islands' (ed. 1870), Hooker saya : ' The ancient 

 ^ k1 fw tnemselves with this plant ; later the Saxons imported it.' Can 



o„t .!;fir f *^^',^«™ot« period the British colour industry could not hold 

 out against continental competition ? 

 Tolumt/oTTsSs'^p^'sJr'^^ ^"^ Peckover in the article in Aunt Judy'* Annual 



