Ken Bainbridge & Hooping Day

Robin Butler, long-term museum volunteer, can be seen hooping a wheel outside the blacksmiths building at Ryedale Folk Museum

On Hooping Day, all the horse drawn carts from the village and surrounding farms would queue at Oulston Bank, on the hill from the forge, in both directions awaiting their turn to have their hoops, aka tyres, replaced by the village blacksmith.

Cart wheel tyres are their metal outer rim and have been in use for ~3000 years¹ until their gradual replacement by pneumatic tyres in the early decades of the 20th century.

Blacksmiths were an integral part of the village economy and records of Oulston, North Yorkshire, indicate the blacksmith was very much part of the village scene until the mid to late 1960s. Bert Keeley was the last Oulston smith having succeeded brothers, Alfred & Thomas Featherstone, who themselves had inherited their smithy from John Bell, as previous village blacksmith.

Many legacy professions dwindled away as the 20th century progressed, new technologies emerged, and old ones fell into antiquity including the village blacksmith. As the shire horses retired, replaced by tractors and other machinery, Bert Keeley adapted, making the metal spares and repairs for the new agricultural equipment.

When the history of Oulston was published in the 1990’s some villagers still remembered ‘hooping’ day. Fitting hoops was a two-man job. In 1930 our great uncle, Ken Bainbridge, was 10 years old, living in the neighboring village of Newton on Ouse. Ken’s vivid memory of hooping day was of the village boys gathering at the blacksmiths with buckets of water. Their role was to assist with the quenching process, throwing water on the red hot steel rim, once it was hammered down over the cart wheel. Once emptied the boys would run down to The Kyle⁴ to refill their buckets in time for the next wheel. For the day’s work, the boys were paid 1d., and soaked to the bone.

I suspect Ken remembered Bert Keeley for the rare Royal Ruby⁵ motorcycle he rode to visit his brother, a close neighbor of the Bainbridge family, in Newton on Ouse.

But as farming became more specialised the work reduced, sometime during the late sixties the sound of a hammer on the anvil was no longer heard on the hill. However, John Darnton recalled that during his last days at the forge Bert had been known to just sit and tap the anvil so that the village would think it was ‘work as usual”. Bert Keeley is remembered as, “An excellent blacksmith, he could turn his hand to anything. He would make horse shoes, hoops for cart wheels, farm implements such as chisel and straight tooth harrows.”
Uluestun to Oulston: A Village History, By Oulston Village History Group⁶

Guide to Hooping⁸

The tyre for the farm cart wheel was more often than not 4″ wide, so that it did not sink into the ground. You needed a flat iron bar at least ½” thick and some 15′ long as most cart wheels were 4′ 6-8″ in diameter. The blacksmith or the wheelwright had to cut the iron bar in the right place so that when it was bent into the hoop and welded up in the tire it was 1¾” less in circumference than the wheel. Measure twice, cut once.

To get the hoop hot it was laid flat and packed off the ground about 3ins. Shavings and waste wood were piled all round and set alight. There was a tool to keep pulling it round as the fire burned. This was to ensure an even heat all round. When the hoop was a dull red it was ready and would have expanded the 1¾” and should drop easily over the rim of the wheel. There was some shouting and swearing to see that all the tools were at hand, such as ‘big ‘ammer’, little big ‘ammer’ ‘tongs’, ‘hooping dogs’, and ‘buckets of water’ held by the eager hands of the village boys.

Three men picked it up with the tongs and lowered it onto the wheel. There was a smell of wood burning. The tongs were thrown out of the way and the hoop was eased over the rim with the hooping dogs. The ‘big ‘ammers’ were then used to send the hoop right down to the hooping plate, which ensured that the wheel would be true and out of twist.

When this was complete there was an urgent call for ‘watter’ and as Norman and his friends poured buckets of water on the hot iron hoop, their eyes were smarting from the wood smoke and hot steam. The hooping plate was dished to hold the water against the hoop otherwise it would have been wasted. All the time now you could hear the sharp cracks as the hoop contracted and compressed the wheel into a smaller circle. The wheel was screwed down to the hooping plate to prevent the wheel being dished too much whilst the hoop was cooling down.

The wheel was unscrewed, lifted upright, and examined to see that all the spokes and fellow joints were truly home. Just to make sure, as the wheel was being trundled back to its cart, each spoke in turn was given a smart blow ‘wi little big ‘ammer’. And the whole process would start again…

Family Tree

Benjamin ONIONS (1795-1853) & Jemima ABEL (1797-1869)
- Martha Edgerton ONIONS (1822-1890) & Unknown
  - John Thomas ONIONS (1842-1924) & Ann LUMSDOM (1849-1925)
    - Jane Ann Edgar (1867-)
    - John Thomas Edgar (1869-1947)
    - Elizabeth Edgar (1870-1956)
    - Martha Edgar (1873-1968)
    - Maude Mary Edgar (1875-1968)
    - Margaret Edgar (1878-1881)
    - William Edgar (1880-1938)
    - Margery Edgar (1883-1904)
    - Robert Edgar (1885-1962)
    - Adelaide EDGAR (1888-1975) & John Henry BAINBRIDGE (1892-1940)
      - Charles Reginald BAINBRIDGE (1915-1994)
        Our direct line…
      - Kenneth Norman Bainbridge (1920-2007)
      - Ronald Geoffrey Bainbridge (1924-2022)
      - Donald Edgar Bainbridge (1926-1972)
      - Doreen May Bainbridge (1928-2013)
    - James Albert Edgar (1891-1960)
    - Andrew Edgar (1899-1902)