The British turned these round-bottom besoms, as they were called, into a trade with besom squires hawking their wares, but Americans created the broom as we know it today.
|
|
Sewa's upper reaches is being panned for diamonds on a large scale. Closer to the coast rice cultivation and the cultivation of piassava, exported for the production of besoms, are important crops.
|
|
There are several other versions of the song. One version was popular just over the border in Southern Scotland and of which Rabbie Burns, for one, knew and in 1796 wrote a satirical piece, Buy Braw Troggin, set to the tune. Another version, The Besom Maker or Green Besoms, although it shares a refrain with this song, is otherwise quite different (the Roud Index assigns it number 910) and can be seen, as The Besom Maker, at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads.
|
|
It is tolerant of grazing and regenerates following occasional burning, and is often managed in nature reserves and grouse moors by sheep or cattle grazing, and also by light burning. Calluna was separated from the closely related genus Erica by Richard Anthony Salisbury, who devised the generic name Calluna probably from the Greek Kallyno (καλλύνω), "beautify, sweep clean", in reference to its traditional use in besoms. The specific epithet vulgaris is Latin for 'common'. Calluna is differentiated from Erica by its corolla and calyx each being in four parts instead of five.
|
|
Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides (1772), New Ed. (Birlinn Ltd, 1998) From time immemorial heather has been used for making besoms, a practice recorded in "Buy Broom Buzzems" a song probably written by William Purvis (Blind Willie) (1752–1832) from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Heather honey is a highly valued product in moorland and heathland areas, with many beehives being moved there in late summer. Not always as valued as it is today,"Most people today consider it the best of all honeys, but this was not always so." Alice M. Coats, Garden Shrubs and Their Histories (1964) 1992, s.v. "Calluna".
|
|
Nicholson was born in Harewood, Leeds and was moved with the rest of the family to Eldwick, near Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire in his infancy. He was educated on the moorland above Baildon and he was employed to pick heather whilst he repeated the lessons laid down to him by the schoolmaster, Briggs. The heather was used to make besoms, as the master did not have enough scholars to pay his way. By the age of eight, he began to show a predilection for poetry when he wrote on his maternal grandfather's barn door; 'Good god of truth, take Mat and Ruth, unto the heavenly throne, then good old Frank, may live in crank, and be disturb'd by none.
|
|
Later guidebooks suggest that the three loopholes visible on the tower were opened up at this time "for musketry in anticipation of the advance of the Chartists", but Rowlands shows that the apertures are visible in illustrations of the gatehouse long before 1839. The gatehouse was the scene of annual battles, or "muntlings", between rival gangs from "Up-Town" – the main town of Monmouth – and Overmonnow or "Cappers' Town", so called because it was the traditional home of those who made Monmouth caps. Until the confrontations were banned in 1858, youths from both sides of the bridge would gather for these occasions on 1 and 29 May, armed with besoms or "muntles" reinforced with stones. The bridge was also used as an unofficial advertising hoarding and as a focus for significant local and national celebrations.
|
|
57 Noted in 1419, the route was mentioned in the following century by William Harrison in the Chronicles of Holinshed, who said that a man could ride to Foulness "if he be skilful of the causie [causeway]".Christy, "A high road in the sea", The Windsor Magazine, v.56 (1922), 556 The Broomway was shown in some detail, along a route very similar to the present-day one, by the surveyor John Norden in a 1595 map. During the 18th century various efforts were made to improve the track, which was the main route from the island for farmers taking produce to market. In 1769, a guidebook stated that "the passage into [Foulness] is at low water, and on horseback, insomuch that many, either in negligence, or being in liquor, have been overtaken by the tide and drowned".A Description of England and Wales: Containing a Particular Account of Each County, 1739, p.30 In the mid 19th century subscriptions were raised to reinstate Wakering Stairs, which provided a better southern point of access. The Broomway was formerly marked by a series of markers resembling short-handled besoms or brooms, hence its name.Christy, 1922, 558King, Tom.
|
|