1) A verb meaning to place iron tires on the wooden wheels of a wain.
1472 Item for byndyng of a paire whelys js, York
1548 to John my sone one yron bounde wayne … to Nicholas my sone … an yron bounde wane … and be cause that his wane is not so good as the other I give hyme a newe whele and the yron of the old whele to bynde yt withe all, Sherburn in Elmet.
2) It is best known as a term in hedging, where a ‘binder’ was a pliable branch or rod, usually of hazel, one which served to secure the wooden fence stakes.
In this sense it is on record from 1642, although figuratively on that occasion: the verb has been noted from 1523. The OED defines 'binder' as a binding piece of wood or timber in carpentry but the earliest evidence quoted is in an architectural glossary of 1842. Numerous references in bridge-building are in contexts where the meaning is not absolutely clear: in 1682, the carpenters working on Bolton Bridge used the phrase binding and other wright worke, which might point to the use of timber, whereas a later entry for three Cartfull of Hasells for binding the waer clearly means hazel rods for the weir. Harrison quotes from an undated document for Bideford Bridge in which a platting of hazel formed ‘a kind of basket’ that served to hold stakes together which were part of a starling. In 1699, the carpenter’s bill for Tadcaster Bridge contained charges For long streakers and cross Binders 174 ft at 12d per ft. This was in a sequence of entries that had to do with trestles and the centre for the arch. In 1747, the word was similarly used in connection with the construction of the centre
that is For sawing the wood and binding the sintrees, Clapham. In 1717 rice and bindings for Hewick Bridge again seems to refer to hazel rods: the ‘rice’ was rise or brushwood.