A sledge, used to transport a variety of heavy goods, not just in winter but at all times of the year, especially in places where wheeled vehicles with loads were impractical.
An obscure term. It is found in contexts which fail to clarify the meaning but was possibly a yoke slung across a person’s shoulders which made it possible to carry heavy loads.
In these mills, flat bars of iron were formed into plates between rollers and then passed between grooved rolls or ‘slitters’ to produce rod iron for nail-making.
This was in effect a small bridge, built into the raised embankment of a causey so that flood waters might flow through and not accumulate around the bridge approaches.
A mark on the fleece of a sheep which identified the owner, a necessary practice where livestock from different farms or different townships used the same pasture grounds.
The word ‘smithy’ was used for the forge or workshop of a blacksmith but iron works on a larger scale were being called ‘smithies’, from the early 1400s at least.
A frequent word in the wills and inventories of cutlers, which covers the range of implements and tools that one would expect to find in a smithy, such as bellows, hammers, stithies, tongs and vices.
A dialect word for a hole at the base of a wall or hedge. It allowed animals to pass from one enclosure to another, from hares to sheep, and differed from a ‘gap’ which was a much larger opening, either purpose made or the result of neglect, one that people and carts might pass through.
The EDD has several late examples of ‘sneck’ where the reference is to a small piece of land jutting into a neighbouring field; an irregular projection in the boundary line.