The common hazel is a deciduous tree or shrub which has historically provided us with nuts, and the flexible shoots from which hurdles and baskets might be made.
A regional word for heddle, that is the small cords or wires through which the warp is passed in a loom, separating the threads so as to allow the passage of the shuttle.
Although ‘hebble’ had two related meanings it was most frequently used for a narrow, wooden bridge – a definition found in the Almondbury burial register in 1559.
These local spellings of ‘haft’ and ‘hafter’ relate to the practice of putting hafts or handles on knives, and they were usual in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.