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From cradle to grave: willows and basketmaking in Somerset |
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Helping with the war effort
Modern wicker products
© Somerset Levels Basket and Craft Centre |
During both world wars Somerset willow growers and basketmakers thrived. Thousands of pigeons were in service, transported in baskets woven with Somerset willows, and there were observational balloon baskets, baskets for shell cases and officers’ kit baskets to be made. In World War II the making of domestic baskets was forbidden, and many women were recruited to make the willow airborne pannier baskets used for dropping supplies of ammunition and food to the troops.
The willow industry had assumed national importance - by now had its own Willow Officer and a programme of research and development at the Government Research Station at Long Ashton, Bristol. Willows even played a part in the rehabilitation and training of ex-servicemen blinded by gas during the wars. It was policy to train people who were blind in the trade of basketmaking, and Somerset willows were sent to institutes for the blind all over the country.
Testing times
With the arrival of plastics in the 1950s the basketmaking industry declined. Workshops closed down and hundreds of acres of willow beds on the Somerset Levels and Moors were “grubbed” out, or cleared of roots and stumps. Today there are some 300-400 acres of willows grown by a dozen families in the area, and about the same number of apprentice-trained basketmakers.
Steve Loveridge with some modern-day baskets
© Somerset Levels Basket and Craft Centre |
The families still involved in willow growing are third or fourth generation descendants of their willow-growing ancestors, and basketmakers still earning a living from their trade in Somerset today continue an unbroken tradition in the county, which has its roots in prehistory. Despite cut-throat competition from cheap foreign baskets, the willow-growing industry in Somerset lives on.
Traditional basketmaking continues with shopping baskets, cradles and dog baskets. Even the bearskins of the Queen’s Guards at Buckingham Palace are constructed over a framework woven with Somerset willows, and firemen today still use a willow basketwork filter when siphoning water from rivers because no modern material does the job as well.
Words: Kate Lynch
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