How hand tools shaped the countryside

Farming and smallholding practices have altered over the past century or so. Some have been subtle, others less so and many brought about by technology and legislation. In the penultimate of his series, Jeremy Hobson continues to outline just a few of them.

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Many of us still lovingly use Grandfather's hand tools - garden hoes, spades, hedging billhooks and much more besides - the designs of which would have all been familiar to workers on the land pre-war, and indeed, pre-20th century. Some are like what has known become known as 'Trigger's Broom' due to the cult comedy success of television's Only Fools and Horses, whereby although the head and handle of a particular tool have both been replaced over the years, it is still considered to have once belonged to granddad! In past decades the feel, weight and shape of any hand tools likely to be in regular use were of utmost importance. As E M Barraud wrote in 1948: 'When a farmer buys half a dozen apparently mass-produced muck forks or pitchforks and takes them back to the farm for his men to use, he is buying a peck of trouble. For all their apparent identity, after an hour's work the men will know each tool from another, will be angling to secure one particular "handy little fork" or to avoid being left with "that awk'ard old thing." To the casual eye, the forks are all precisely