Willow Connections: Exploring Castle Donington
The Trent Valley in the East Midlands was once one of the most important areas for willow growing and basketmaking in the country. The parish of Castle Donington, on the border...
Category Archives: Basketry Then and Now
Final thoughts about the MERL shell basket
by Mary Crabb Since my last posts (post 1, post 2 and post 3) about making a replica of the artillery shell basket (90/43) at the Museum of English Rural...
Filming baskets
by Adam Jones-Lloyd My filming adventure with the Basketry Then and Now project began in June 2016 with what started as a one-off trip to The Museum of English Rural...
The Kingsbury Episcopi Time Travellers: Withies in the Curriculum
by Adrian Wills The Kingsbury Time Travellers, a local history group, formed about two years ago with the aim of archiving documents, photographs and videos from and of the parish...
Pigeons in War – and pigeon baskets in war
by Greta Bertram Last month I visited the Royal Pigeon Racing Association’s Pigeons at War exhibition at Bletchley Park and met with Colin Hill from the RPRA to find out...
Cane for shell baskets: Industrial processing
by Mary Crabb As I had found out when making a replica shell basket from the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL 90/43), processing of cane by hand is a...
Research skills development session for basketmakers
by Daniel Carpenter On 24th April, nine basketmakers from across Devon and Cornwall met at the Devon Heritage Centre in Exeter for an introduction to the research facilities available to...
Basketmakers’ Lists of Sizes and Prices
by Greta Bertram I do not know their origins, but since at least 1850 various basketmaking associations, such as the Journeymen Skip, Basket, and Hamper Making Society, the London Union...
Cane for shell baskets: Processing by hand
by Mary Crabb I ended my previous post about the recreation of a World War One artillery shell basket seen at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL 90/43) with...
An Introduction to the Shell Basket
by Mary Crabb My interest in shell baskets began with an Internet search of the Museum of English Rural Life’s (MERL) online collection. Having visited MERL some years before...