Rakes at Elvaston Castle

It’s a rake making month as I’m just back from a great weekend demonstrating at Elvaston Woodland Festival. I get to camp in some brilliant places during these events and Saturday was a beautiful morning so I got up early to have a look around the park and enjoy the parterre garden and topiary.

The festival is a free event so folk wandered in and got the chance to see a really first-class collection of craftspeople demonstrating around the site. I spent the weekend bashing tines through the cutter and putting together a hill rake I had seen during my last visit to the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading. It has the head set at 45degrees to the handle with the teeth showing top and bottom and is intended for rowing up hay on steep hillsides.
These events are a very social occasion for lots of craftspeople who only meet up during the show season. I met loads of new folk and my mate Rob came over from his stand to try out my stail engine for rounding up tapered rake handles.