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A ‘Dug-out’ Canoe from South Wales: with Notes on the Chronology, Typology, and Distribution of Monoxylous Craft in England and Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Cyril Fox
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Extract

In September 1925, Mr. Thomas Jenkins, a carpenter of Llangorse, Breconshire, recovered a dug-out canoe of oak from Llangorse Lake. This lake is situated six miles to the east-ward of the county town. It is about 500 ft. above sea-level, in the valley and near the source of the stream known as Afon Llynfi, which flows northward (into the Wye) along the western escarpment of the Black Mountains. The lake is a mile in length and in greatest breadth, and is of glacial origin.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 1926 , pp. 121 - 151
Copyright
Copyright   The Society of Antiquaries of London 1926

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References

page 121 note 1 Mr. Jenkins fixed the exact spot on the map for me. He notes that this part of the lake floor is ‘very muddy, and black at that’.

page 122 note 1 The starboard side is extremely thin, nearly half of it is broken away, and a portion at the starboard quarter is missing. See pls. XVIII, XIX, XX, XXII.

page 126 note 1 Arch. Camb. 1870, 192.

page 127 note 1 The absence of any objects definitely of medieval character on the Llangorse crannog suggests that its occupation ceased before, at latest, the thirteenth century.

page 127 note 2 For a brief summary of the evidence relating to monoxylous craft in France, and a bibliography up to 1908, see Déchelette, , Manuel, i, 540–3Google Scholar.

page 127 note 3 There are brilliant exceptions. See references to nos. 8, 16, 17, 18 of my tabular list.

page 127 note 4 Wilson, Prehist. Ann. Scot., 1st ed. 35.

page 127 note 5 Wilson, op. cit., 35.

page 127 note 6 References to all the English and Welsh canoes referred to in this paper will be found in the List on p. 147.

page 127 note 7 Archaeologia, 1, 369.

page 127 note 8 Proc. Camb. Antiq. Soc, vii, plate xxviii, and my List, no. 20.

page 127 note 9 Munro, Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings, p. 38 ff.

page 128 note 1 Munro, op. cit., p. 65..

page note 2 Does this gift necessarily imply the hewing of a ‘dug-out’ from the tree? It may have been, as Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler reminds me, a present of raw material for a rib-and-plank craft. Mr. Ifano Jones, of the City Library, Cardiff, tells me that when his mother married, about 1840, her father went to the Squire and asked permission, according to custom, to select an oak tree from a certain wood for her: this to be made into furniture for the young couple's start in life; and some of this furniture still survives. The location of this custom is Mynydd Bach, Cwm Twrch, on the Brecon borders; the owner was Squire Gough of Ynys Cedwyn. Westmorland, it may be recalled, was part of the ancient home of the Cymry.

page 128 note 3 Example in the London Museum from the Thames near Kew Bridge.

page 128 note 4 See Proc. Soc. Antiq., xii, 65, for an example of the latter from Ireland.

page 128 note 5 Wilson, Prehist. Ann. Scot., 36. It is possible that the Brigg canoe also had an outrigger. The history of this device in Europe is now receiving attention. Fornvännen, 1924, häft 4; 1925, häft 1. See Antiq. Journ., v, 331, 475.

page 129 note 1 From Lough Erne, Ireland. Proc. Soc. Ant., xii, 67.

page 129 note 2 e.g. Wilson, Prehist. Ann. Scot., 1st ed., 31; Munro, op. cit., p. 123; King's Munimenta Antiqua, i. 28. For an excellent photograph of a paddle—found in the Wey valley—see Surrey Arch. Coll., xxv, 134.

page 129 note 3 An example from Loch Lotus, Kirkcudbrightshire, in Nat. Mus. Antiq., Scotland, is pierced with holes for fourteen oars; another found in Loch Dowalton, Wigtonshire, has thole-pins. Munro, op. cit., 41. My no. 4 from Astbury is pierced for two oars.

page 129 note 4 Wilson, Prehist. Ann. Scot., 1st ed., 31.

page 129 note 5 See List, nos. 6, 10, 24, 28.

page 129 note 6 I could see no trace of the seat at the bow end referred to in the record, Essex Nat., xii, 164–5. The discoverer described the boat as ‘carefully fashioned to a regular form and planned to measure’, which is a just observation.

page 130 note 1 A canoe of the Neolithic period from the Lake of Chalain, Jura, France, has a spurred prow (L'Anthropologie, 1905, 118), as, of course, have the Bronze Age boats carved on rocks at Bohuslän and other sites in Sweden.

page 130 note 2 Wilson, op. cit., 36; Munro, 61. From the Clyde and Kirkcudbrightshire.

page 130 note 3 Cat. Roy. Irish Acad., part I, p. 202.

page 130 note 4 Lake Dwellings of Ireland, p. 47.

page 130 note 5 Proc. Soc. Antiq., xii, 67.

page 131 note 1 The bibliography in Bulleid and Gray's Glastonbury provided the basis (eighteen examples) for this list. Three which provide chronological evidence are added, making a total of thirty-four.

page 131 note 2 I have not found record of the occurrence in this country of small dug-outs with handles for transport. Should such be present (in Lancashire?), it would be necessary to provide a separate group.

page 131 note 3 Lake Dwellings, 1878, pl. XL.

page 133 note 1 A few boats included in the List are omitted from the series of diagrams, owing to their bad condition, or the paucity of the record.

page 134 note 1 Trans. Cambs. and Hunts. Arch. Soc, iii, p. 143.

page 136 note 1 I hesitate to adopt this course because the evidence for the special characters of this boat—half-round section and exaggerated curve of the profile—depends on an early nineteenth-century drawing in Artis' Durobrivae. Our Fellow Miss M. V. Taylor has drawn my attention to an instance of bad draughtsmanship in this volume, and the illustrations of the canoe may not be entirely accurate. If they are, the efforts of the occupants must have been mainly devoted to preventing the craft from capsizing. The drawings show no holes or notches suggestive of an outrigger.

page 13 note 1 Parallels occur in Scandinavia. See Fornvännen, 1925, häfte i, p. 61, fig. 41, for a beaked specimen of this type.

page 141 note 1 Those in the floor may be either mast holes, drainage holes, or plugged knot holes. Those in the sides, apart from the pierced counters of stern-board canoes or the oar-holes of the Astbury punt, are difficult to account for. They may, in the case of the Brigg canoe, have held the lashings of the outrigger spars. Holes in the bows are doubtless for mooring-ropes.

page 141 note 2 Previously omitted because the recorded information was so scanty or the condition so bad. They are listed at the foot of the Table, p. 151.

page 142 note 1 Fox, Arch. Camb. Region, p. 64.

page 142 note 2 Two much-damaged dug-outs from Knockin and Chirbury, Shropshire (List, p. 151) are parallel-sided and flat-floored with vertical or outwardly sloping sides. Both ends of Knockin are broken away; it has a hole (for a mast?) centrally placed, and a hole in each side (for stays?). Chirbury apparently has one end rounded, the other is broken off; there is a transverse rib on the floor near the rounded end. The rectangularity of these examples reveals their relationship to the Ellesmere and Astbury vessels, but I do not feel able, on the evidence available, to classify them. Knockin may be Group I; Chirbury Group III. I owe these details to the kindness of Miss L. Chitty.

page 142 note 3 That the Preston canoes should be placed in a class apart from the other Lancashire canoes is, I think, unquestionable. In Trans. Man. Geo. Soc, xx, 295. illustrations of them are placed on the same page as a drawing of the Barton canoe. They are seen to belong to a different school, another tradition.

page 142 note 4 I submit that the Group system here adopted is in no way invalidated by the fact that similar minor features are present in canoes of different groups. It is just what might be expected. The Gothic buildings of the West of England are of several types found elsewhere in the country; but they carry details which stamp them with a regional individuality.

page 143 note 1 A racing eight may be compared with these: Length, 62 ft. 4 in.; Breadth, 1 ft. 11 in.

page 144 note 1 Incidentally one may notice how widely the type is distributed in these islands; stern-board canoes are common in Scotland (see Wood-Martin, op. cit., 32, 36; Munro, op. cit., 41, 42, 61, 156), and Ireland (Proc. Soc. Antiq., xii, 67), and are found both in the east and south of England. In Fornvännen, 1925, häft i, there is an excellent photograph (fig. 47) of a stern-board canoe from Motjärn, Värmland.

page 145 note 1 The Snowdon boat may be of this type. I should not, however, regard the inclusion of North Wales within the area as invalidating the geographical argument.

page 145 note 2 I except from the generalization one advanced type represented by the Deeping Fen canoe, for which there is no evidence of date; also the Horsey dug-out, for reasons already stated.

page 145 note 1 For courtesy and ready help in supplying information concerning canoes in the various museums I wish to thank Mr. W. Parker Brewis, F.S.A., Mr. J. J. Buckley, M.A., F.S.A. Scot., Mr. C. H. Chalmers, Miss L. F. Chitty, Mr. E. V. Collier, M.S.A., Dr. W. E. Collinge, F.S.A., Dr. G. H. Carpenter, Mr. A. J. H. Edwards, Mr. H. St. George Gray, Dr. Eric Gardner, F.S.A., Mr. E. Hitchens, B.Sc, Mr. J. W. Jackson, M.A., Mr. T. D. Kendrick, M.A., Mr. Harman Oates, F.S.A., Miss M. O'Reilly, M.A.