Basket Making

Types of Baskets

The weaving of basket work has been carried out from prehistoric times up until the present day, and the materials and methods used to produce the baskets have varied little.

Only a century ago there were over 200 different specialised types of baskets in production in Britain. An almost infinite variety of baskets & willowwork, has been produced for household and garden use over the centuries. Uses include animal carriers, bathchairs, beds, birdcages, footwear, hat stands or cases, log baskets, needlework cases, picnic hampers, radles (?!), shopping baskets, travelling boxes, summerhouses (!!), umbrella stands or cases and of course wheelbarrows...!.

The greater part of the basket maker's production went into making baskets for the agricultural, industrial and retail trade.

Fishing Baskets included:
- 'crans', 'swills' and 'cockle flats' (East Anglia)- 'prickles' (Sussex) - large conical salmon traps, 'putchers', made in willow (Bristol and R. Severn)- bottle-shaped eel traps, 'hives', of hazel or willow (Fens, R. Severn) - lobster and crab pots worked in hazel and willow (north and west coastal areas)

Farming Baskets included;
- dairy produce baskets (willow was used as it allowed the contents to breath) - sack fillers - cattle feeders - vegetable and fruit pickers and hampers for harvesting the crop- bird crates and traps- animal muzzles - assorted baskets to transport produce to market

Trades and Industries Baskets included;
- cloth skeps, square open baskets up to 3' high and mounted on rollers, were used in Northern textile mills - hampers used in the Northamptonshire boot industry and the Leicestershire hosiery factories - corves, made from coppiced hazel, in which miners traveled down the mine shaft - baskets to transport yeast to bakers, a by-product of distilleries - delivery baskets, particularly used for laundry and bread industries

Other types of Basket Include
-furniture - wicker-work chairs of circular shape with high backs were popular in Roman times and are still made today - theater - traveling hampers for theatrical companies - musical instruments - large circular baskets for kettle drums - travel - passenger-carrying balloon baskets, horse-drawn carriages were sometimes made of basketwork - burial - in 1875, there was a movement to promote burial in basketwork coffins, and these were still available into the 1930s - military - the Brigade of Guards use basketwork frames to keep their bearskins helmets in. During both World Wars, basketry was used extensively. In W.W.II Basket Makers where a "reserved occupation". meaning that they were not called up to fight but made baskets for the war effort instead!