Many of us are off work due to the Covid-19 virus
and are now walking much more. For those
living near or in the town centre this is an opportunity to observe and look at
the detail of the streetscape while strolling around. A feature of many Irish cities, towns, and
villages is the wealth of ironwork to be seen. Lamp posts, boot scrapers,
railings, balconies, post boxes, gates, bandstands, street name plaques,
bollards, manhole covers and window guards.
Most of what we see today is cast iron made from
moulds in the 19th century.
There
is some hand forged ironwork to be seen but this is rare. There were ironworks
in many large towns and cities in Ireland: The Perrott and Hive works in Cork,
Benjamin Graham and J Moir in Waterford, Mallet, Turner, in Dublin, and
Musgrave and Co., Belfast. Many small
local foundries were affected by the growth of larger firms such as Walter
Macfarlane and Co. of Glasgow who produced work on a huge scale, exporting
all over the world. Much of the ironwork
in Dungarvan was made by this firm. How
do we know this? They printed large hardback fully illustrated catalogues of
the products which were distributed to hardware shops. The customer looked through these and picked
out the particular item they required which had a catalogue number. The order was taken and then shipped from
England, delivered probably by train to Dungarvan railway station and from
there moved by local carters to the hardware shop. These catalogues are
works of art in themselves with every single component illustrated by
engravings.
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| Walter Macfarlane and Co. of Glasgow catalogue |
William Fraher, curator of Waterford County Museum
will point out what can be seen in Dungarvan and Abbeyside over the next few
weeks. So next time you are out for a
stroll look out for these gems hidden in plain sight. Look up, look down, and
look around!
Boot Scrapers
This week we are going to look at boot scrapers. There are references to boot scrapers from the
18th century but these were probably portable ones. In the 19th century footpaths were
more common in urban areas, so people began to walk more. However, the streets were still dirty with
horse dung and other dirt, so it was essential to be able to remove this before
you entered your front door. Boot
scrapers were built into the front wall of the house by the entrance door or
fixed in place on the front step by the door or sometimes incorporated into the
ornamental railings. There were different designs, some plain, others in a
classical or gothic style as we can see in front of the Old Bank Restaurant in
Bridge Street. Examples of scrapers built into the house wall can be seen in
Church Street, for instance on the side of Merry’s Pub. This boot scraper in Church Street was
made by Izons & Co, West Bromwich Works and these are pages from their
catalogue c.1840. This boot scraper cost 1/6.
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| Boot scraper in Church St., Dungarvan |
