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2009

Clog making at the Nant

The clogmaker was a specialised craftsman, concerned only with making wooden soled clogs. In addition to itinerant cloggers almost every village and rural locality, particularly in the north and west, had its clogmaker, who made footwear for each individual buyer, measuring the feet and making clogs to fit those feet. For clog sole making the craftsman requires a timber that does not split easily, but on the other hand, it must be relatively easy to shape. As clogs are used on wet factory floors, mines and muddy fields, the sole must be durable in water and completely waterproof. in Wales nearly all the clogs are equipped with alder or sycamore soles. While many village clogmakers utilise sycamore, the itinerant cloggers, by tradition are craftsmen in alder. Alder, a riverside tree, grows best in good fertile soil, with running water near the roots. It grows profusely in favoured conditions, its seed being carried from one place to the other by the streams. The timber it produces is soft and perishable under ordinary conditions, for it contains a great deal of moisture. In wet places, however, it is extremely durable and for this reason alder is widely used for such specialised tasks as revetting river banks. It can only be harvested in the spring and summer months and must be left to season for at least nine months before it can be used. Clogging was therefore a seasonable occupation and gangs of a dozen or more craftsmen wandered from grove to grove, living a hard, tough life in roughly built temporary shelters. In Wales the clogger reckoned that the amount of money made from selling waste material as pea-sticks and firewood should be enough to buy all the food the gang needed while they worked in the woods.

From: "Traditional Country Crafts" by J. Geraint Jenkins, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965