Dating lead spindle whorls

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Spindle Whorls. No matter what part of Britain you come from, if you are a metal detectorist you will have at least one spindle whorl, others will have found many. There is a good chance yours will be decorated on both sides with lines and dots in various formations. Lead spindle whorls were commonly used in the Iron Age, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods, but the ornamented examples are likely to be post medieval and date to the Tudor era. Whorls are often found in isolated parts of the countryside away from rural settlements which suggests that women carried wool and spinning equipment with them so that they could spin during any spare moments they had whilst working in the fields. The constant demand for spun wool to keep the family loom at work producing cloth would make this necessary. The whorl would be fixed on the end of a spindle to help the spindle rotate. Spindle spinning was used to spin wool and flax into yarn for weaving. Wool would usually be washed, combed and oiled before spinning. Spinning in this manner was reduced after the arrival of the spindle wheel or great wheel in the 14th century and there was further competition from the flyer spinning wheel that arrived in the late 15th century.

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Following initial assessment, we are delighted to have started work on the objects destined for display in Perth City Hall. The first artefacts that we treated are these lead spindle whorls. Lead was commonly used for making spindle whorls in the past, before its toxic properties were understood. Spindle whorls are used to spin yarn to create textiles; they provide the weight required on a spindle to keep it spinning. Spindle whorls have been used in textile production for thousands of years, but these examples are more recent, dating to the post-medieval period after AD The spindle whorls shown here needed a good clean, and some of them required consolidation too, to address flaking and deterioration.

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Lead spindle whorl

For several years now I have been trying to make various replica pewter and lead objects, one being a spindle whorl. Not perfect copies cast from an original in silicone, but copies of the sort that a foundryman might make after seeing an object. Of course the process of making the object can also teach you something about the manufacturing capabilities of the time and confirm or disprove how you think it was made. Spindle whorls are the weight which keep the spindle turning when you are using a drop spindle to make thread, as was common throughout the medieval period and into the 17 th century. Excavated examples include ones made of wood, pottery and lead and obviously I am interested in the latter.

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