No 40. THE BAILLIE BOX CART.

No 40. The Baillie Cart.

The long arm of co-incidence never ceases to amaze me. I wrote some time since of Jeemie Morrison making a new box cart for our father in Stronsay. A few days ago while turning out some rubbish many years old from the bottom of a drawer at Isauld, I came across an old account for a new box cart for Baillie, which account I found in Baillie Farmhouse when we were doing some work there after we took it over in May 1971. We found it down behind an old mantel piece we were taking out, must have dropped through a gap with the wall. I put it in a drawer and forgot it until I came across it in that recent tidy up. It was from William Grant, Achscrabster, wheelwright, joiner, undertaker, cabinet maker, and was as follows:-

P. 128 T.A. Campbell, Baillie , from P5.

1930. To Balance from last a/c. £ -.19-02
Aug. 6
To 1 New Wheel fitted to old Rim £ 3-07-06

To New Box Cart with Shelwings
Oak Framing, Larch Cods,
Larch Cladding, New Shafts,
Old Corn Wings fitted £ 9-07-06
Aug. 23.
1 New Wheel 4’ 5” £ 3-07-06
1 wheel filled, 6 Fellos & painted £ 1-10-00
£18-11-08
Feb 20th. By cash £18-00-00

Balance due 11-08

This was interesting enough though only somebodies long ago account. But then came Spooky Tuesday. Out of the blue old friend Donald Macintosh arrived at the door with some ancient photographs he had turned up, and with them William Grant’s old accounts ledger. Grant was Donald’s great grandfather. Donald had read my story of Jeemie Morrison making the new cart for our father in Stronsay and thought, rightly, that I would be interested in the photos. They show in graphic detail the new wheels being rimmed - or shod, the new wheels on their axle being painted, the new shafts with William Grant standing behind them, his wood plane in his hand. And the completed box cart with Donald’s mother Una the small girl in the cart, her proud grandfather standing behind.

We cannot use all the fotos Donald produced but the first four showed a fiery ring of blazing peats on which the iron rim for the wheel was heated red hot, the metal expanding enough to fit over the wooden wheel. Two men (Willie Grant and Jamie Dundas) with long blacksmith tongs carry the red hot rim from the peat fire to the waiting wheel while David Dundas, the Achscrabster blacksmith, father-in-law to William Grant and father of Jamie Dundas, follows with a bucket for water. Then the rim placed onto the wooden wheel, smoke rising, Willie Grant ready with the twelve pound sledge hammer to tap it home, David Dundas standing by with his hand reaching for the water bucket at his feet. No time could be wasted before the red hot rim began to burn the wooden fellos ( outer rim pieces of the wheel ), so water had to be ready for the moment the rim was in place. Under the wheel can just be seen the massive heavy round iron anvil 4 inches thick, dead flat, a hole in the centre cut out to fit the hub of the wheel to be rimmed so that the outer wooden rim of the wheel would lie flat ready for the iron rim. It is still at Achscrabster, also four Achscrabster Quarry flagstone anvils, two still in excellent condition, six feet square and nine inches deep, similarly holed.

. Against the gable end of the blacksmith’s shop behind the men lie old wheel rims, best seen in a blown up photo, the old iron re-usable by the blacksmith. New rims would be made to measure for every wheel according to a formula I forget, made according to the size of wheel which could vary, but the iron was 2¾ inches wide and ¾ inches deep.

The rimming process finished with the wheel standing vertically in a pool of water. for final cooling,. A close look at this photo shows the wheel on a spindle being rotated in the water by the left foot of Willie Grant pushing down on the spokes, with Jamie Dundas on the other side with left hand and fingers on the spokes. Achscrabster Farmhouse is in the background.

The wheel was made up of a wheel hub, twelve wooden spokes, six fellos dovetailed together - the bits around the rim. The ends of the spokes were rounded and passed through holes in the fellos, two spokes to a fello, the protruding ends then split and a wooden wedge driven in to each from outside to tighten and hold everything together. Crafty in the right sense of the word, who today could do it?

(Karen // foto 7 a poorer foto )
A photo of the cart wheels now assembled on their axle and being painted by Sandy Grant, Willie Grant’s oldest son, colour usually bright red.

(Foto 8.)
A nice photo shows the new shafts ready and waiting for the iron sliders to be fitted mid way along the shafts. The sliders held the chain which went over the saddle on the horse’s back, the hooks for the harness chains for pulling the cart forwards or backwards, the hooks for the belly band that went under the horse and stopped the cart from toppling backwards with a hinderly load of sheaves at harvest, much needed at times. Called sliders because the hooks slid along to find their own best pulling point. Willie Grant, joiner, stands proudly beside his work with his wood plane in his hand.

(Foto 9.)
The new Baillie box cart sitting ready for the road, iron sliders now in the shafts. Willie Grant has his grand-daughter Una on the cart, Donald Macintosh’s mother.

The buildings are still there, the joiner shop, the blacksmith shop, though their use has changed The massive flagstone anvils are still there. The iron anvil is still there. I must explore some more.
It is for me a fascinating photographic sequence of the rimming of cart wheels and the making of a cart, mirroring the cart we saw as boys being made by Jeemie Morrison. That it was for Baillie, which my son Tom now farms, is even more personally interesting. .
These old dying crafts of the countryside are out of sight and out of mind. Would it not be good if Caithness could record some of them before everyone who remembers them is gone?