National Trust for Scotland Ranger Fraser McKechnie has found an object whose identity remains unclear, although it could be some kind of barrel’s hoop or part of a cart wheel’s tyre.
Fraser found the circular iron band – over a metre in diameter – while on patrol by the burn above Ardess at Rowardennan.
While it is slightly corroded, the band is in relatively good condition and will have been made within the last hundred years.
Derek Alexander, archaeologist for the National Trust for Scotland, says: ‘We’d very much appreciate possible suggestions for what this object could be, as our current ideas do not wholly satisfy us.
‘It was found about 15 metres away from the foundations of a small stone building between two burns, which may have been the location of a former mill’.
Scotland’s most southerly munro, Ben Lomond, is home to both rare wildlife and amazing views. With the slopes providing a variety of terrain, the mountain is an excellent place for visitors of all experience levels to go walking.
And now it has also provided a conundrum for amateur and professional social and industrial historians and specialists to ponder.
The NTS will be glad of the prompts of all suggestions offered.
While it is difficult to tell from the picture and mud; it looks like a wheel rim, known as a “tyre”, as fitted by a cartwright on a horse and cart. Is the rim band perpendicular to its circle? Barrels tend to be tapered and fit flush to the barrel side itself. From the size and width, it would probably been from a Handcart; bullock carts were much thicker set and broader.
Although my time served apprenticeship was as a farrier, I lived in a Wheelwrights Cottage as a kid, the old workshop was attached with most of the workings still in place; many of the old skills of working iron between wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and farriers were very similar.
The process of tyring the wheel was an art in itself; usually requiring two or three men. The red hot tyre would be placed over the wooden wheel, probably while it was in a tyring platform. This was then beaten by hammers until in place, followed by quenching with water so as not to scorch the wood. The contraction of the rim held the cartwheel together, the whole wheel and tyre was then fully quenched.
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