144 
MR. E. CORDER ON THE CULTURE AND 
II. 
ON THE CULTURE AND PREPARATION OF WOAD 
AT PARSON DROVE. 
By Edward Corder, Hon. Sec. 
Read 28tli October , 1890. 
At first sight the subject of this paper may seem hardly to merit 
more than a passing notice ; hut there are still men in the Eastern 
Counties who call themselves Woad Merchants, and as this ancient 
industry continues to form one of the manufactures of this country, 
though to an insignificant extent compared with its importance 
in times past, it should be of interest to us especially, seeing 
that the only Woad Mill left in England worked on the old 
system, that is with horse power, is located in the east of England,* 
within a short distance of the borders of our own county. 
Parson Drove, near Wisbech, is one of the last of the Fen 
villages in which Woad or Wad, as the fenmen call it, is cultivated, 
and it is quite the last where it is manufactured in the same 
primitive way that it was in the last century in many localities in 
Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. 
The cultivation of this plant, which was so largely carried on in 
the Fens and other districts in England before the introduction of 
indigo, and by which, until within a comparatively recent period, 
many considerable fortunes were made, owes its decline to the 
increase in production and decrease in price of indigo ; the only use 
for Woad here at the present time being as a setter or mordant for 
indigo and other vegetable dyes ; it also tends to make these dyes 
* There are three mills still in existence in Lincolnshire, but they arc all 
worked by steam. 
