No pokey

April 15, 2016 11:33 AM

A short history of the thimbles one might find in the English countryside. Also crotal bells and Gunter's chain markings.

Via a disscusion as to why things like thimbles are spread across the fields of England (TL; DR: we don't really know) with the most widely accepted explanation being the manuring hypothesis.

posted by Mitheral (11 comments total)

I'm taking a walking tour of the North York moors this summer, so I was very excited to read that thimbles are found all over the countryside. My excitement was slightly dampened when reminded by the Reddit discussion that these are archeological artifacts and should be left in place.
posted by redsparkler at 12:02 PM on April 15, 2016

Calling the Danebury Metal Detecting Club!
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:10 PM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also crotal bells

Mike Oldfield's followup album?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:28 PM on April 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

The fields of the Tamar Valley were (and undoubtedly still are) full of crockery sherds and clay pipe stems, due to the use of night soil from the town and city streets as fertilizer. I had quite a collection from the garden of the place I grew up in, which in earlier times would have had formal gardens and gardeners tending it, although I never had anything as exotic as a thimble. Some ornate clay pipe bowls were as good as it got.

.
posted by Devonian at 12:55 PM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Now I know what a Gunter's Chain is! Excellent work, MetaFilter!!
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:37 PM on April 15, 2016

I was imagining a superstition to the effect that pricking your finger through a thimble and getting it bloody would make any pregnant woman who used it subsequently miscarry and so the thimble would have to be ritually disposed of, or some such, but what I found was a superstition that losing a thimble while making a garment would bring luck to the eventual wearer, and that receiving gifts of two thimbles was lucky, but three would make you an old maid.
posted by jamjam at 1:54 PM on April 15, 2016

I'm fascinated by the household objects that have stayed virtually the same over hundreds of years. It gives this feeling of... connectedness? I guess? That I'm stabbing a piece of fabric with string in almost the same way my ancestors did, give or take replacing wood and metal with plastic.

Though there isn't a lot of room for innovation in the world of thimbles. Still.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 3:20 PM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

This raises the intriguing question: can anything other than bells be crotal?
posted by Segundus at 11:52 PM on April 15, 2016

Attraction?
posted by Devonian at 5:19 AM on April 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Though there isn't a lot of room for innovation in the world of thimbles. Still.

We can always hope for thimbl, the VC-backed app that's going to disrupt stitchery!
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:08 AM on April 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

This raises the intriguing question: can anything other than bells be crotal?

Crotalids can!
posted by Lou Stuells at 11:12 AM on April 16, 2016