Myths and Tales
The romantic vision of the charcoal burners life is that he would live a solitary life in the woods for months on end. This is only partly true. Records show that many 'colliers' as charcoal burners where known, often had smallholdings on which to grow food & to live, nearby to the woods they worked. These they often owned as opposed to being "tied" to a Manor etc. During the charcoal season, which tended to be the spring, summer and autumn months, they would spend a great deal of time tending their kilns so constructed shelters nearby.
The burners family would often bring food to the burn sites. As the kilns needed tending day & night for 5 or 6 days to prevent the shrinking mould breaking down & destroying all the charcoal, it is natural that the huts had beds & cooking facilities for the Burner. However they went home whenever they could and where regarded as "local people".
Whole families would stay in the woods if circumstance demanded. This usually meant they where involved on "piece work" basis, working in & burning other peoples woods, traveling from site to site as demand dictated. They would be working for a charcoal or fuel merchant who arranged the families itinerary. Home would be different turf covered huts built when & where needed. Children sent to the nearest village school perhaps 5 miles away, who would bring back from the local shop, whatever was needed, which would be very little. While the family lived in the woods, basket-making and besom-making would sometimes earn an extra few pence.
The shelters evolved into huts of simple designs, there where many variations, both regional and integral. Some had porches, some two huts joined together, some steeper that others etc. They would generally be made of turf covered sacking, supported by wooden poles. There would also generally be a stone hearth/fireplace at the rear, though this was sometimes in the center of simpler 'day' huts.
One of the myths surrounding charcoal burners is that you would always find a crab apple tree outside the entrance of the huts. Indeed it is possible to locate former "pitsheads" by identifying the crab apple tree, then looking for a hardened level piece of ground near by (or visa versa). Whether the tree was there and the hut was built next to it for its source of fruit, or whether the trees grow as a result of the burners discarding crab apple cores they brought with them is not known. All that is known for sure is that in some areas, the remaining Crab Apple trees are seen as indications that charcoal was made nearby. - where you found one, the other was close by.
Adders are also linked in tales to the old Charcoal Burners. It is said that they adopted Adders pets. This could well have come about as the result of the snakes seeking the warmth of the earth clamps when the weather was colder and the snakes more docile.
