LOW←TECH MAGAZINE English

Burning the Bones of the Earth: Lime Kilns

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Lime kiln in Porthgain, Wales. Picture: [Aelwyn](http://www.flickr.com/photos/kopetatxuri/6286612774/).

Explore the now-ruined estates of the Irish countryside and you occasionally find a stone cylinder, as much as several metres high and wide, open at the top and with a small door at the base.

Some resemble the medieval fortresses that still dot the landscape here – but no one built fortresses so tiny, or half-buried in the side of a hill. In fact, they are kilns for lime burning, a now-forgotten industry that sustained many agrarian communities before energy became cheap.

Limestone is mainly coral and shells of long-extinct sea creatures, squeezed over aeons into a solid mass of calcium carbonate

“Lime” here means neither the citrus fruit nor the tree, but refers to a white powder derived from limestone. For at least 7,000 years humans created lime in kilns, as they might have hardened pottery or smelted ore, and used the material for dozens of purposes now largely replaced by fossil-fuel by-products – perhaps most commonly to create mortar for construction.

British and Irish farmers, though, found it most important to neutralise acid soils and multiply crop production – as much as fourfold, by some contemporary accounts. For hundreds of years until the mid-20th century, lime supported a vast and vital network of village industry —
quarries to mine the limestone, carts and barges to transport it, and specialists to monitor the burning. In the late 1700s, according to one survey, County Cork alone was said to contain an amazing 23,000 kilns, or one every 80 acres. ¹

Limestone is mainly coral and shells of long-extinct sea creatures, squeezed over aeons into a solid mass of calcium carbonate, or CaCO3. When burned at 900 degrees C or more it vents carbon dioxide (CO2), leaving behind the volatile calcium oxide (CaO) – “quicklime,” “burnt lime” or “unslaked lime.”

Then, when combined with water – hydrated or “slaked” — the quicklime became calcium hydroxide or Ca(OH)2, and could be put to many uses. Confusingly, all of these have been called “lime” at times, but in this article, we will call the original rock “limestone,” the caustic material from the kiln “quicklime,” and the hydrated final product “lime” for clarity.

Roman Concrete

The earliest use of lime dates to present-day Turkey between 7,000 and 14,000 years ago, and many ancient civilisations used it to create mortar between stones. The Romans, however, took lime a step further, mixing it with various other ingredients to create an early version of cement. In fact, their version has proven superior to our own in some ways. Our concrete lasts only decades – as little as a single decade in seawater — while Romans created concrete that not only formed in seawater, but have withstood the pounding of waves for 2,000 years.

Picture: Disused lime kiln above Murlough Bay, Ireland, by [Minipixel](http://www.flickr.com/photos/75052163@N00/2197082381/in/photolist-4m9C3H-R13x4-9uNKAR-d6MQp1-5PZvqp-9o2vrt-d6N7BN-cKszWs-fdHLy4-d6NbN1-egcr4v-axX7kt-5hSked-5hMXC4-5hSiGJ-5hMZ1B-8LyBWM-5o8zxy-7LjYmb-7Y67n6-7Y67Wa-96RzFV-2jjJW-2jjtQ-2jjiN-2jjgN-2jjA7-2jj89-2jjxz-2jjpE-2jj2b-2jjQz-2jjed-2jjEJ-2jjN3-2jjbu-2jjmG-2jiZR-2jjr6-2jj3B-ecNvyy-4ReWHX-6MZ8xJ-8FMVx8-8FR4c1-8FMUS8-8FR6g9-8FR5zY-8FMSN2-7LjZMQ-nUsZ4)

The secret, according to two papers released in the summer of 2013, involved mixing quicklime with volcanic ash to form mortar. Volcanic ash was plentifully gathered from the volcano at Vesuvius, according to Pliny the Elder – ironically, the same volcano that would later kill him. Romans then packed this mortar into wooden forms and lowered them into seawater, which caused the quicklime to react and form a lime-and-ash mix of waterproof cement.

The papers’ authors say such techniques could prove useful even today; not only did their concretes stand up to time and the elements better than ours, but such methods are “greener” – generating less carbon emission – than our cement manufacture. Crushing rocks into Portland cement powder requires enormous quantities of energy and accounts for seven per cent of all industrial carbon emissions on the planet. ²³⁴⁵⁶

Picture: One of the forty lime kilns built between Skipton and Bradford along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, Bradford's demand for lime being one of the key reasons the canal was built. Photo credit: [Peter Hughes](http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgwarnog/6268774761/in/photolist-axX7kt-5hSked-5hMXC4-5hSiGJ-5hMZ1B-8LyBWM-5o8zxy-7LjYmb-7Y67n6-7Y67Wa-96RzFV-2jjJW-2jjtQ-2jjiN-2jjgN-2jjA7-2jj89-2jjxz-2jjpE-2jj2b-2jjQz-2jjed-2jjEJ-2jjN3-2jjbu-2jjmG-2jiZR-2jjr6-2jj3B-ecNvyy-4ReWHX-6MZ8xJ-8FMVx8-8FR4c1-8FMUS8-8FR6g9-8FR5zY-8FMSN2-7LjZMQ-nUsZ4-NQfau-d4QT57-7Y67vH-7Y9mXS-7Y67DD-7Y6858-8wSW2h-8QkQMK-d6MPwu-aFqwpX-6cKcxS/).

Romans brought such technologies with them as they spread across Europe, so lime kilns appeared in Britain with their invasion and disappeared for several hundred years after they left. In Ireland, where Romans never set foot, Normans apparently brought the technology in the 1200s, to build the round towers that still frequently stand today. (7)

Whitewash, Limelight and other Applications

Lime also forms the basis of whitewash, used for centuries to protect and brighten structures, fences, vehicles and even trees, without the alarming and unpronounceable stew of toxic ingredients in many modern paints. Whitewash is fundamentally a mix of lime and water, although it could also contain salt, milk, linseed oil for water-proofing, or hair or cereal husks for strength.

The dried lime was safe to handle and even for animals to lick, but remained mildly alkaline enough to disinfect barn and dairy walls. Its brilliant whiteness was valued in places like Britain and Ireland, where the winters grow very dark – Irish cottages were traditionally whitewashed in spring and again before Christmas. In sunnier climates, however, that same colour helped keep buildings cool.

Lindisfarne had a large limeburning industry and the kilns, which were built in 1860, are among the most complex in Northumberland. Picture by [Tom Blackwell](http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjblackwell/5837142003/in/photolist-9TNSXn-5r1NwR-5r69t3-5r1P4g-5r69Db-5r1PhT-d6NwpL-MCwQ1-8N7uR2-8Naz6A-8N7v7R-8N7tEi-8N7uzn-8NayQA-96UCAf-JcErK-cGgs45-cKneXS-8414VR-4TZmsi-4TZmoa-dC43cy-s8eqa-s8eph-fRVu6m-fRV4S3-fRTCrS-8dK3Tx-6uSpuY-s8eqt-5fYzn-iDCak-52KNv8-4R5UY9-gFecK-7T1BeZ-7T4SBC-6Ui2x9-d6MQUN-6Ui2Tj-gFebM-6owFi-8fK9pL-JJDdK-JJDcc-bLjuxV-bxpNeh-bxpNn3-4Nny8H-8n3dd2-9UQguA/)

Lime had many other uses: Farmers rubbed it on their livestock’s feet as an antiseptic, or painted it onto fruit trees to prevent fungal diseases. Some mixed a bit of lime into well-water to disinfect it, or to preserve eggs for months without spoiling. Tanners used it to remove hair from hides, gardeners to repel slugs and snails, printers to bleach paper.

Even the corrosive quicklime, the calcium oxide that came straight from the kiln, had many uses before it was hydrated. It kept pantries and store-rooms dry – the 1915 household manual “The Best Way” recommended keeping a bowl of it to reduce humidity, as it sucked moisture from the air. It caught fire easily – sometimes too easily – and was used to make an early, high-intensity lamp for the stage – the original limelight. ⁷

Terrorist Weapon

It also made a rather fearsome weapon, as it could sear the skin and blind the eyes. In David Hume’s A History of England, he recounts a battle between English and French ships around 1216, in which the English captain Phillip d’Albiney ingeniously used quicklime to turn the tide of battle. He saw that the winds were blowing from his ships to French fleet, and “having gained the wind of the French, he came down upon them with violence; and throwing in their faces a great quantity of quick lime, which he purposely carried on board, he so blinded them, that they were disabled from defending themselves.”

Lime kiln in Prague. Picture by [Radim Stezka](http://www.flickr.com/photos/57470317@N03/5319303355/inphotolist-973PyP-8HRNtT-8qPnxD-6mvXTW-6nMrEd-7fQt7V-7bKgqi-dTdMxH-dTjqpL-ad7ncD-cjLb8o-baoj1r-8JbAxE-6GoUun-6PzNFQ-JZsfu-JZpuC-JYbg5-JYjw4-JYc6f-JYjrr-JY9fL-JYkdz-JYmze-JYkiP-JYiPR-JYbbY-dRV3hx-8HRNG4-9t2QTX-d4gLqo-7Jzy1t-4Pc1K3-8J8uNF-8JbAAw-6aHJ6t-c8rXnm-7Jzyei-7JDubh-5GgaYs-eWp1dR-aimgxU-aEnw3Z-azMg8u-7sL6j8-aEnxoH-6Zc6yT-9rQvPM-9rTygA-9rQwSH-7sQ769).

The compound made a handy terrorist weapon as well; when Irish reformer Charles Parnell spoke at a political rally in 1891, someone in the crowd threw quicklime at his face, and “had not [he] shut his eyes in time, he would undoubtedly have been blinded,” his wife Katherine later wrote.

Quicklime was also shovelled into graves to decompose bodies more quickly, as Oscar Wilde saw when he was a prisoner at Reading Gaol (Jail) in Britain:

And all the while the burning lime Eats flesh and bone away
It eats the brittle bone by night
And the soft flesh by the day
It eats the flesh and bone by turns
But eats the heart away.

Lime in Agriculture: Sweetening the Soil

Its use in agriculture, however, eclipsed any other use on these islands, so valuable was its ability to turn acid bog-lands into croplands. Some 40 per cent of the arable land in the world is too acidic for many plants to grow – the more acidic the soil, the more toxic aluminium plants absorb. These days, farmers often treat such soils with crushed limestone or other energy-intensive products, and scientists like Chris Gustafson of the University of Missouri are trying to genetically engineer aluminium-resistant crops. In earlier eras, however, farmers found that lime temporarily “sweetened” or neutralised the soil. ⁸

This made lime so valuable that many agrarian communities supported a network of local industries to create it — quarries to mine the limestone, wagons to transport the rocks by road or barges by canal, and specialists to supervise the burning. By the mid-1600s many families in County Cork, Ireland, for example, paid their rent by lime-burning on the side, according to a civil survey of the time. ⁹

Lime kilns on San Juan Island, USA, built by the British. Picture by [Travis](http://www.flickr.com/photos/baggis/7768755560/).

Farmers treated the soil in quite a straightforward manner: they shovelled quicklime straight from the kiln onto a horse-drawn cart, drove the cart to the needed field and drove the horse back and forth across it as though ploughing. Every several metres the farmer stopped the cart and scooped several shovels of quicklime in “falls” on the ground — six to eight barrels to the acre.

Spreading a highly caustic compound onto cropland might sound inadvisable, but the next rain both hydrated it into lime and soaked it into the ground. Transporting the quicklime, however, was dangerous work, as it could spontaneously burst into flame and burn carts and barns, or simply to eat through wooden containers if it wasn’t spread quickly. ¹⁰¹¹

The process only sweetened the land for a limited amount of time, according to contemporary reports – three years in some fields, twelve years in others, depending on conditions. In any case liming had to be continually re-applied or it “enriched the father but impoverished the son,” went the saying, so the kilns were kept in steady business. ¹²

Operating the Kiln

Kilns themselves needed to be carefully situated: they needed to be as close as possible to quarries, so that hundreds of tonnes of rock could be carried with as little effort as possible, by horse or barge. At the same time they had to lie as close to the lime’s destination as possible – a fortress or church being built with mortar, or fields that needed sweetening — so that the quicklime could also be transported without incident. Moreover, they could not be situated near populated areas or even campsites, as the burning lime gave off noxious and potentially lethal gases.

The canal wharf built at the base of lime kilns constructed in 1842, Dudley, England. Picture:[Paul Englefield](http://www.flickr.com/photos/39027808@N00/8084295615/in/photolist-djo8ra-e8Vbp-9qxTAL-aFqngc-7fQt7V-8N7yni-pFdLe-dvQy44-cnz5zW-aeKN4c-oMsSK-fcFET-dKpfWo-aeJMiD-oMt4K-aAqSvL-d6NbKw-8nQfqk-fcEwu-c7iigS-7gi2S8-Jc3i-cQuW4w-6fsKST-5FBAFB-aeJHQt-2js1cr-6mvXTW-6mvXS7-6mvXSY-ci2nJ9-8WMHPK-bXAcbS-ckKJ8s-hktHq-7BA9jW-7BA9hL-7BA9j7-5hHgwc-5hGQXt-5hMsAy-5hMgQL-8LjMhL-5hMkb5-5hMy11-5hGKQH-5B9iQr-5MFWph-9JJJXd-8gP9pa-5rU8Jv).

The brick or stone structures were often built into hillsides to allow people to easily transport coal and lime to the open top, or mouth, and were often several metres across and about as high. On the inside they usually tapered down so that gravity alone fed the fuel down, and at the narrow bottom of the cone, one wall had an arched opening or “eye.”

The kiln had to be filled carefully, with precisely measured amounts and materials – if the lime did not bake at a high enough temperature for long enough, the stone would not transform into quicklime and the work would be in vain. Lime-burners filled the bottom of the kiln with the driest wood possible – furze-wood was often mentioned – and then the men lay alternating layers of fuel and limestone.

Perhaps the most common fuel was “colm” – anthracite coal – although charcoal could also be used, as well as “turf” – dried peat from the bogs here. Whatever the fuel, it had to be in an opaque layer, insulating the chunks of limestone from the sides of the kiln and from each other, according to old lime-burners interviewed decades later for Irish national radio.

Sleeping by the Kiln

Once the kiln was filled, the wood – at the bottom of the kiln, by that little door – was set on fire, and that, in turn, lit the fuel through the rest of the structure. Once the kiln was lit there was no going back; the lime-burners had to maintain a watch over the kiln for the next three or four days, sleeping nearby.

Burning was often done in winter, when there were fewer farm chores to be done, so it must have been tempting for men sleeping out in the cold to move closer to the warm glow of the kiln. According to lime expert Colin Richards, however, sleeping by the kiln was extremely dangerous, between the poison gases and the open pit. There were cases of itinerants sleeping near the mouth for warmth, he said, rolling into it as they slept and being roasted alive.

Lime kiln in Quijorna, Spain. Picture by [Álvaro Moreno Gómez](http://www.flickr.com/photos/53474483@N03/8109410207/in/photolist-dmAR8n-6o5Cu4-6o5PG8-pA1ZE-eRNU9C-pA1YB-5HqBZN-7exJXT-7exJwa-7eBDeE-7exKpx-7eBCLL-7eBBYb-7exKTp-dmARze-dmAU6y-6AJWcA-6o5Cne-cH2S2J-akKWu4).

Certainly the men did exhausting work for days at a stretch, making them “thirsty as a lime-burner” as the saying went. A single kiln could hold a hundred tonnes of material, which had to be shovelled in by hand, yet delicately measured and arranged inside. Of course there was less to shovel out – the coal had burned away, and the limestone had lost some of its mass – but that material was much more difficult to handle.

“Drawing out the lime underneath was the dirtiest part of it,” said one anonymous lime-burner who worked in Ireland in the 1930s and 40s and was interviewed for a radio documentary in 1981. “It was there that you got the dust, and you got too much of it and you began bleeding from the nostrils.”

Magic and Ritual

With their furnace-like heat, poison vapours, alchemical transformations, hazardous products and vital importance to agrarian survival, it was perhaps inevitable that farmers associated kilns with all kinds of magic and ritual. According to Irish elders interviewed in the 1930s, young people often performed Halloween rituals around burning-the-bones-of-the-earth-lime-kilns to find out who they would marry.

In one instance, fairies were said to have killed off a farmer’s livestock after he inadvertently built a kiln in their way. Other peoples were said to have summoned evil spirits there; a reverend in Carnmoney, rumoured to have sold his soul to the Devil, was said to have courteously invited him to a kiln so the Devil would feel at home. (15)(16)(17) The lime burners themselves had a simpler ritual, one they said was practiced among “all the lime burners of old.”

“You took a bottle with you that morning … of holy water,” one said, and before the kiln was fired up “you just sprinkled it on top the stones, and made the Sign of the Cross, for you were burning – what they used to say was — you were burning the bones of the Earth.”

Brian Kaller is a journalist living in rural Ireland. He blogs at Restoring Mayberry

Topographical Directory of County Down, by Samuel Lewis, 1837. ↩︎
“Microscopy of historic mortars — a review,” by J. Elsen, Cement and Concrete Research, July 2005 ↩︎
“Chemistry and Technology of Lime and Limestone,” J. Elsen, Cement and Concrete Research, December 2005 ↩︎
“Material and elastic properties of Al-tobermorite in ancient Roman seawater concrete,” by Marie D. Jackson, Juhyuk Moon, Emanuele Gotti, Rae Taylor, Abdul-Hamid Emwas, Cagla Meral, Peter Guttmann, Pierre Levitz, Hans-Rudolf Wenk, and Paulo J. M. Monteiro, Journal of the American Ceramic Society. ↩︎
“Unlocking the secrets of Al-tobermorite in Roman seawater concrete,” by Marie D. Jackson, Sejung Rosie Chae, Sean R. Mulcahy, Cagla Meral, Rae Taylor, Penghui Li, Abdul-Hamid Emwas, Juhyuk Moon, Seyoon Yoon, Gabriele Vola, Hans-Rudolf Wenk, and Paulo J. M. Monteiro, American Mineralogist. ↩︎
“Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions,” Berkeley, http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2013/06/04/roman-concrete/ ↩︎
The Best Way - A Book Of Household Hints & Recipes, 1915 ↩︎
“Famine Fighter,” Illumination magazine, Spring / Summer 2013 ↩︎
The Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork, by C. Smith, 1815 edition. ↩︎
“Burning the Bones of the Earth,” a documentary by Radio Telefis Eireann, 1981 ↩︎
Edwardian Farm, BBC Television ↩︎
Essay on the Use of Lime as a Manure, by M. Puvis, 1836. ↩︎

The Art of Producing Sustainable Consumer Goods: Basketry

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Image: Big burden basket by [Joe Hogan Baskets](http://www.joehoganbaskets.com/).

Baskets have been replaced by plastic and other kinds of factory-made containers in almost every area of life, appearing today mainly as twee Easter decorations. Making them has become synonymous with wasting time – “basket-weaving” in the USA is slang for an easy lesson for slow students.

The craft of basketry, however, might be one of our species’ most important and diverse technologies, creating homes, boats, animal traps, armour, tools, cages, hats, chariots, weirs, beehives, shelters and furniture, as well as all manner of containers.

Basket weaving makes use of fast-growing biodegradable materials—branches, twigs or shoots – that requires the forest to be cultivated rather than cleared. Basketry allows almost anyone, with little or no money and few tools, to create a large variety of useful goods in a way that is one hundred percent sustainable.

We tend to think of technology as rock and metal – from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, from pyramids and statues to Viking swords and pirate cannons. We think of the things that survive to be placed in museums, in other words, and tend to neglect the early and important inventions that ordinary people used every day but whose materials did not survive centuries of exposure.

[Joe Hogan Baskets](http://www.joehoganbaskets.com/).

29,000 years of history

Virtually all human cultures have made baskets, and have apparently done so since we co-existed with ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats; for tens of thousands of years humans may have slept in basket-frame huts, kept predators out with basket fences, and caught fish in basket traps gathered while paddling along a river in a basket-frame boat. They might have carried their babies in basket papooses and gone to their graves in basket coffins.

Some of the first agriculture might have been to grow basketry crops, > not food crops

The earliest piece of ancient basketry we have comes from 13,000 years ago, but impressions on ceramics from Central Europe indicate woven fibres—textiles or baskets –- up to 29,000 years ago. ¹ We have clues that the technology might be far older than that; in theory, Neanderthals or some early hominid could have woven baskets.

[Joe Hogan Baskets](http://www.joehoganbaskets.com/).

“The technology of basketry was central to daily living in every aboriginal society,” wrote ecologist Neil Sugihara, and baskets “were the single most essential possession in every family”. ² Early humans must have regularly cropped basketry plants as they would edible plants, and burned woodlands to encourage their growth, according to anthropologist M. K. Anderson. Anderson even proposes that some of the first agriculture might have been to grow basketry crops, not food crops. ³

Main basket types

Baskets come in several main types. Coiled baskets appeared early, created by winding flexible plant fibres from a centre outward in a spiral and then sewing the structure together. Their spiral nature, however, limits them to circular objects; beehive containers, called skeps, were built this way for hundreds of years, and straw hats still are today.

The earliest American baskets were twined; fibre was wound around a row of rigid elements like sticks – wrapped around one, twisted, wrapped around the next one and twisted again. The sticks would seem to limit this approach to flat surfaces like mats, but bending and shaping the sticks allows twining to create a variety of containers and shapes.

Basketry high sleeper, by [Coopérative Vannerie de Villaines](http://www.vannerie.com/index.php?lng=fr_FR).

Still others were plaited, with flexible materials criss-crossed like threads through cloth. The Irish flattened and plaited bulrushes for hundreds of years into mats and curtains. Here too, the approach would seem to limit plaiting to flat surfaces, but as the rushes must be woven while green and flexible and harden as they dry, they can be plaited around a mould to create boxes, bags or many other shapes.

Picture: Seven-band backpack baskets by [Hiroshima Kazuro](http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/Exhibitions/basketMakerExhibit.html#exhibit).

Wicker, however, probably remains the most versatile technique, weaving flexible but sturdy material like tree shoots around upright sticks that provide support. Wicker is the form used for fences, walls, furniture, animal traps and many other advanced shapes, and when you picture a basket, you’re probably picturing wicker too. ⁴

Hurdle fences

Once early humans mastered the technique of fashioning wicker, they began using it for a variety of purposes beyond carrying and preparing food, and shelter probably came next. Wattle fences were made with a row of upright poles with flexible wood cuttings woven between them, a basket wall. Unusually, they could be made in modular, lightweight pieces a metre or two high and a metre or two across – hurdles—and then uprooted, carried to a new location, and stamped into the ground where needed.

The uprights, sometimes called zales or sails in Britain, were typically rounded at the end and placed in a wooden frame, sometimes called a gallows, to hold them in place. Then withies – slim cuttings of willow or hazel – were wound back and forth around the uprights. At the end of the hurdle the withy would be twisted for greater flexibility, wound around the last zale, and woven back in the other direction. Usually a gap would be left in the middle of the hurdle, called a twilly hole, which allowed a shepherd or farmer to carry a few hurdles as a time on his back.

Hurdle fence, source: [Windrush Willow](http://www.windrushwillow.com/index.html).

According to author Una McGovern, hurdle fences were vital to medieval agriculture; by keeping sheep confined without the need for permanent infrastructure, they allowed tenant farmers to graze sheep on a patch of land, letting them manure the fields one by one and deposit the fertilisers necessary for cereal crops. ⁵

Basketry buildings

The same technique could form the walls of a house, once a log or timber frame was built and the wattle filled in with a “daub” plaster for insulation and privacy. The daub often contained clay, human or animal hair and cow dung, and hardened around the wattle like concrete around rebar. The resulting structure could last for centuries, and even now restoring or demolishing old buildings sometimes reveals wattle inside the walls.

Wattle and daub wall of a 1905 house in Belgium ([source](http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~belghist/Flanders/Pages/tremelo.htm)).

Similar techniques were used by cultures around the world, from Vikings to Chinese to Mayans. While their cheap and easily available materials made them an obviously popular and practical building method, not all builders loved it. The Roman architect Vetruvius, in the first century AD, moaned about the hazards of such cheap material in his Ten Books on Architecture:

“As for ‘wattle and daub’ I could wish that it had never been invented,” Veruvius wrote. “The more it saves in time and gains in space, the greater and the more general is the disaster that it may cause; for it is made to catch fire, like torches. It seems better, therefore, to spend on walls of burnt brick, and be at expense, than to save with ‘wattle and daub,’ and be in danger. And, in the stucco covering, too, it makes cracks from the inside by the arrangement of its studs and girts. For these swell with moisture as they are daubed, and then contract as they dry, and, by their shrinking, cause the solid stucco to split.

But since some are obliged to use it either to save time or money, or for partitions on an unsupported span, the proper method of construction is as follows. Give it a high foundation so that it may nowhere come in contact with the broken stone-work composing the floor; for if it is sunk in this, it rots in course of time, then settles and sags forward, and so breaks through the surface of the stucco covering.” ⁶

Woven boats

Improbable as it sounds, basketry has long been used to make boats. How long we don’t know, but humans appeared in Australia 40,000 years ago, even though it was separated from Asia even in the Ice Age. They might have built wicker boats covered in animal skins, but even if they merely tied logs together into rafts, they must have had the related technology of making fibre and tying it into knots.

Irish coracles. Source: [Guy Mallison Woodland Workshop](http://guymallinson.blogspot.com/2010/07/coracles-in-herefordshire.html).

The Irish used woven boats, or coracles, for hundreds – and probably thousands—of years; they are mentioned in medieval Irish literature and are still made by aficionados today.

The coracle’s small size and lightweight construction ensured that, after the occupant had paddled across rivers, lakes or marshes, he could pick up his boat and walk across country with ease

All were woven from willow or hazel and covered with a hide – usually cow hide, but horse-hide and sealskin were also used – and supposedly waterproofed with butter. All of them were alarmingly tiny crafts in which a person sat cross-legged and sat carefully upright to avoid tipping over, like a bowl-shaped kayak. The coracle’s small size and lightweight construction ensured that, after the occupant had paddled across rivers, lakes or marshes, he could pick up his boat and walk across country with ease.

Building a coracle, first step. Source: [Guy Mallison Woodland Workshop](http://guymallinson.blogspot.com/2010/07/coracles-in-herefordshire.html).

To take to the sea, the Irish wove curraghs—larger and oval-shaped to navigate across choppy waters, but still no larger than a rowboat. Documentary footage from 1937 showed men constructing a Boyne curragh; first planting hazel rods in the ground in the desired shape, and weaving a tight frame between them along the ground – what would become the gunwale, or rim, when the frame was flipped over. Then the hazel rods were twisted together to make a wicker dome, and the frame was uprooted and turned upright and a hide placed around the frame and oiled. ⁷

Fish traps

One common use of such craft was to set and gather fish and eel traps from rivers and lobster pots from the sea – also made, of course, from wicker. Such foods were an important source of protein, especially in Catholic countries where meat was sometimes forbidden. The traps operated on a simple principle; a bit of bait could lure an animal into the trap but, if it were shaped properly, they would be unable to escape.

Traps for river crabs, made by [Hiroshima Kazuro](http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/Exhibitions/basketMakerExhibit.html#exhibit).

'Lowering the Eel Bucks' - From 'Life on the Upper Thames' by H.R. Robinson, 1875 ([source](http://canalbookcollector.blogspot.com/2011/03/engraving-of-week_23.html))

Hundreds of plant species

Baskets can be woven with any one of hundreds of plant species, depending on whatever was available. In more tropical climates people used cane or raffia, while in temperate areas like Europe a wide variety of branches and plants were available: dogwood, privet, larch, blackthorn and chestnut branches; broom, jasmine and periwinkle twigs; elm, and linden shoots; ivy, clematis, honeysuckle and rose vines; rushes and other reeds, and straw.

Fields of Brittany Blue willow in Kildare, Ireland in February. Picture by Brian Kaller.

Perhaps the most popular, however, was willow—sallies or silver-sticks here in Ireland, osiers in Britain, vikker in Old Norse, the last of which became our word “wicker.” They are highly pliable when young or wet, lightweight and tough when dried, and grow so quickly that a new crop of branches up to three metres long can be harvested each year. As one of the earliest trees to grow back after an old tree falls and leaves a gap of sunlight in the forest, or after a forest fire razes an area, they are perhaps the tree closest to a weed in behaviour.

'Osier Cutting', from 'Life on the Upper Thames ' by H.R. Robinson, 1875 ([source](http://canalbookcollector.blogspot.com/2011/05/engraving-of-week.html))

Their roots spread rapidly under the surface of the soil, making them an ideal crop to halt erosion. Their fast growth makes an excellent windbreak, the basis of most hedgerows, and makes them particularly useful in our era for sequestering carbon and combating climate change. In addition, the bark of the white willow (Salix alba) can be boiled to form acetecylic acid, or aspirin.

Cleaning the soil

In addition, the common variety Salix viminalis or “basket willow,” has been shown to be a hyper-accumulator of heavy metals. Many plants help “clean” the soil by soaking up disproportionate levels of normally toxic materials, either as a quirk of their metabolism or as a way of protecting themselves against predators by making themselves poisonous. Many plants soak up only a single toxin, others only a few; Viminalis, it turned out, soaked up a broad range, including lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, zinc, fossil-fuel hydrocarbons, uranium, selenium, potassium ferro-cyanide and silver. ⁸ ⁹ ¹⁰

Willow harvested stools in front, standing crop at rear, source: [Joe Hogan Baskets](http://www.joehoganbaskets.com/)

Many hardwood trees can be coppiced, cut through at the base, or pollarded, cut at head-height, and regrow shoots on a five-to-twenty-year time scale. Willows, however, do not need to grow to maturity, and continue to thicken at the base and grow a fresh crop of shoots each year. Basket-weavers here harvested willow as a winter ritual – ten tonnes to the acre – from fields of large century-old stumps that had never been mature trees. ¹¹

Out of hundreds of traditional crafts, none has so many everyday applications

Once the willow is cut it could be dried with the bark on, or the bark could be stripped off. Stripping was a tedious task but it made the willow easier to quickly prepare and use, reduced the risk of decay, and it gave the willow a valued white colour. To strip the bark a large willow branch was cut partway down its length, with metal strips attached to the inside of the cut; the weaver could hold the branch between their legs and use it as we would use a wire-stripping tool to remove insulation. When cuttings were too thick to manipulate, a special tool called a cleve was used to cut them three ways down their length.

Basketry banisters by [Coopérative Vannerie de Villaines](http://www.vannerie.com/index.php?lng=fr_FR).

Withies were typically dried for several months and kept indefinitely before soaking again for use. Willow can be woven straight from the tree, but as it dries it loosens and the weave shifts and rattles, which is seldom desirable. To a novice, preparing the materials presents as much of a challenge as the actual weaving, as the willow must be dried but re-soaked, kept wet without rotting, and used before becoming dry and brittle again.

Everyday applications

Today a small but growing movement of people around the world tries to rediscover and re-cultivate traditional crafts and technologies. Many such techniques deserve to be revived; but some require substantial experimentation, skill, training, infrastructure or community participation. Not all low-tech solutions can be adopted casually by modern urbanites taking their first steps toward a more traditional life.

Basket weaver. Source: [Roule ta bosse!](http://rouletabosse.over-blog.fr/)

Basket-weaving, however, requires no money other than that needed for training and possibly materials. It uses crops easily found in almost every biome on Earth, and requires few if any tools. Highly skilled weavers can create works of art, but simple and practical weaves can be done by almost anyone. Out of hundreds of traditional crafts, none has so many everyday applications.

Brian Kaller

Brian Kaller is a journalist living in rural Ireland. He interviews elderly Irish about traditional ways of life, and writes a weekly column about the Long Emergency for his local newspaper. Brian blogs at Restoring Mayberry.

Archeologické rozhledy, 2007, Baskets in Western America 8600 BP: American Antiquity 60(2), 1995, pp. 309-318. ↩︎
Fire in California’s ecosystems, By Neil G. Sugihara, p. 421 ↩︎
Anderson, M.K. – The fire, pruning and coppice management of temperate ecosystems for basketry material by Californian Indian tribes. Human Ecology 27(I) 79-113. 1999. ↩︎
The Complete Book of Basketry Techniques, Sue Gabriel and Sally Goyner, David and Charles 1999. ↩︎
Lost Crafts, Una McGovern, Chambers 2009 ↩︎
Ten Books on Architecture, Vetruvius, Chapter 8, Section 20. Circa 20 BCE ↩︎
Hands, RTE documentary by Sally Shaw Smith, episode 29, “Curraghs.” ↩︎
Phytoremediation. By McCutcheon & Schnoor. 2003, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, page 19. ↩︎
Enhancing Phytoextraction: The Effect of Chemical Soil Manipulation on Mobility, Plant Accumulation, and Leaching of Heavy Metals. By Ulrich Schmidt. In J. Environ. Qual. 32:1939-1954 (2003). ↩︎
The potential for phytoremediation of iron cyanide complex by Willows. By X.Z. Yu, P.H. Zhou and Y.M. Yang. In Ecotoxicology 2006. ↩︎
Bulletin of the Bussey Institution, Vol. II, Part VIII. p. 430. Published 1899. C. D. Mell’s 1908 book Basket Willow Culture urged farmers to grow willows as a cash crop to feed the continual demand of weaving material, maintaining that “the demand for basket willow rods is very great and every year many thousands of bundles of rods … are imported from France, Germany and Holland.” Incredibly, it seemed that as highly valued as baskets were in the USA, the then-sparsely-inhabited country was still importing willow from comparatively small and crowded Old World countries. ↩︎