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Brian Palfrey, Cooper

1986 , Stowmarket (Suffolk)

Cat no. 951

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A cooper demonstrates the traditional skills of barrel making using a wide range of traditional tools.

Brian Palfrey, cooper at Greene King's brewery at Bury St. Edmunds, makes a four-and-a-half gallon barrel called a pin. He uses quartered green oak to ensure the barrel will be water tight. Filmed in the Boby Building at the East Anglian Museum of Rural Life, he describes his craft while using traditional tools: a hollowing knife, a backing knife, a jigger, a plane, an adze, a saw tub, a rounding adze, thumb and tapping planes, an inside shave and a chiv. He bends the wood over a fire of woodshavings.

Featured Buildings

East Anglian Museum of Rural Life

Keywords

Barrel making; Coopering; Craftsmanship; Traditional tools

Background Information

The East Anglian Museum of Rural Life is located in Stowmarket, Suffolk. The website for the Museum, www.eastanglianlife.org.uk, has the following information about the Boby Building at the Museum: 'The building’s design shows an interesting mixture of urban and rural styles. The cast iron window frames on the ground floor are typical of industrial buildings; the white weather boarding and pantiled roof reflect a style popular in the countryside. Perhaps this can be seen as representative of the work that went on inside this building: an industrial, urban process producing rural, agricultural equipment.'

Manifestations

Brian Palfrey, Cooper

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