Canal horse harness

[solwayrover]

Can anyone help me with information about the horse harness used on the canals. All the pictures I can find in Google show the head end of the horse and a regular horse collar. The unusual aspects of canal horse harness are at the other end of the animal; traces, britchin, crupper etc.are very different from those used in any other horse trade and not well documented. Does anyone have pictures of the aft end of the horse or know of a book with a good description or a museum display with a knowledgeable curator? As I write this another thought occurs, was there one single harness style or were there distinct regional variations?

 

As a child I used to watch horses working on the Lea Navigation near my home in Tottenham. Unfortunately I was only seven or eight at the time and I can't remember the details.

[johnjo]

Can anyone help me with information about the horse harness used on the canals. All the pictures I can find in Google show the head end of the horse and a regular horse collar. The unusual aspects of canal horse harness are at the other end of the animal; traces, britchin, crupper etc.are very different from those used in any other horse trade and not well documented. Does anyone have pictures of the aft end of the horse or know of a book with a good description or a museum display with a knowledgeable curator? As I write this another thought occurs, was there one single harness style or were there distinct regional variations?

 

As a child I used to watch horses working on the Lea Navigation near my home in Tottenham. Unfortunately I was only seven or eight at the time and I can't remember the details.

Youtube 'canal horses', brings up a few videos that you might be able to glean some info from.

 

Edited to add, 'horseboating' brings up some more videos.

Edited January 26, 2009 by johnjo

[John Orentas]

Hi Rover.

 

Contact Sue Day at her Horseboating Society.

 

<sueday_horse@yahoo.co.uk>

 

She is very active at all things horsey.

[Derek R.]

Can anyone help me with information about the horse harness used on the canals. All the pictures I can find in Google show the head end of the horse and a regular horse collar. The unusual aspects of canal horse harness are at the other end of the animal; traces, britchin, crupper etc.are very different from those used in any other horse trade and not well documented. Does anyone have pictures of the aft end of the horse or know of a book with a good description or a museum display with a knowledgeable curator? As I write this another thought occurs, was there one single harness style or were there distinct regional variations?

 

As a child I used to watch horses working on the Lea Navigation near my home in Tottenham. Unfortunately I was only seven or eight at the time and I can't remember the details.

 

I can remember setting back from the canal edge as a horse drew a lighter through along by Ferry Lane.

 

Have a look here: http://www.canaljunction.com/craft/horsedrawn.htm There's a few pages.

 

Derek

[Roger t' Bodger]

John beat me to it but she is the person to ask who is currently keeping this aspect of carrying alive.

 

Lets face it - whats better, a quiet horse pulling you along or at the tiller of a motor with the exhaust in the face and a b' row all the time?

Canals were designed for the motive power - horses! The harness for horses was developed over thousands of years and the collar was the point of pull, the supported harness that led to the bar at the rear of the horse which balanced up the pull for pulling on either side of the waterway. To stop the two lengths of leather, between front neck collar and rear bar chaffing the flanks of the horse, donkeys and mules was to add wooden balls (of different colour to match the boat's colour scheme).

 

You don't need factories, mines, designers, engineers, to build horses - just someone to shovel up the benign horse poo for the roses! The future - the way things are going.

[alan_fincher]

Not exactly from the back end, but other's have said this helps in their understanding.

 

 

All I can remember is that the "bar" across the back is called something like a "whiffletree", (spelling ?), and has a large metal hook in the middle which the tow-rope is hooked on to.

 

Not a lot of help, am I !

Edited January 26, 2009 by alan_fincher

[AMModels]

swingletree?

[Rick-n-Jo]

Solway, hi.

 

I should answer this, since I'm Sue Day's representative on earth! - or at least the south of England, being Southern Rep on the Horseboating Society committee.

 

The most complete book on the subject, I think, is

 

"The Horse On The Cut" by Donald J Smith published in 1982. It's out of print now, but copies come up on Amazon, eBay etc. A quick Google found one for £10 here

for instance.

 

The harness is an adaptation of a simple draught harness such as used for ploughing or log hauling. Like these, there is no breeching, of course, since the horse does not have to brake the load. Where the the plough harness would have had chain traces from the collar hooks to a stretcher or spreader bar (swingle tree) behind, these are replaced by rope.

The pull to a boat is always slightly to one side,

 

 

so bobbins or a leather sleeve are put on the traces to prevent the horses sides being rubbed sore.

There are two types of spreader bar, their use seems to have varied over time as well as regionally. The earlier type is a round bar about three feet long which holds the traces apart. Behind, a rope goes from one end to the other forming a triangle of rope with a loop in its centre. A monkeys fist knot or a wooden toggle are put in the end of the towline, which is put through the loop.

Later a heavier square or oval section bar was used, with a tow hook in the centre, much like a wagon swingle tree, the towrope then having an eye splice in the end.

 

And that is all you need! If you look at this Constable painting

 

 

the bar drags on the ground when not under load. So a few other bits were added. A full harness has a back band and hip straps to support the traces, and two straps over the quarters to take the weight of the bar.

Straps run from the collar to the tail (crupper) above, and a martingale is often fitted between the front legs, these stop the collar from slipping up the horses neck if it puts its head down. The hames on the collar were usually cut down to collar level to prevent them catching in bridges.

 

Here's Buddy, who pulls Bywaters holiday boat on the Montgomery, wearing the full set of gears.

 

 

 

And here are our boathorses in training, Gypsy Queen wearing the gears that we made ourselves, based on old photos and sets in museums (though those are sadly usually wrong!)

 

 

If you want any more, please ask.

 

Rick

[alan_fincher]

swingletree?

Well the operators of that horse always called it a "wiffletree" I think.

 

The following seems to indicate that whiffletree, whippletree, singletree and swingletree are all possible, though!

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/whiffletree

[MartinClark]

I am surprised that you didn't mention the Horseboating Society's website, Rick!

www.horseboating.org.uk

 

There are a good few photos in the Gallery section that show some of the details of the harness.

[AMModels]

Well the operators of that horse always called it a "wiffletree" I think.

 

The following seems to indicate that whiffletree, whippletree, singletree and swingletree are all possible, though!

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/whiffletree

 

Swingletree must have been the local one for it Alan, I remember seeing a full set of boat horse harness hanging in my grandads shed years ago, he lent it to someone for a museum iirc and it has since disappeared.

[Derek R.]

Swingletree must have been the local one for it Alan, I remember seeing a full set of boat horse harness hanging in my grandads shed years ago, he lent it to someone for a museum iirc and it has since disappeared.

 

I've heard such a spreader bar being referred to as a swingletree in the UK, and note that 'whiffletree' is a word used in the N.E. United States.

Why swingletree? Probably evolved from the use of a stout branch off a tree which pivoted - swung.

 

Naturally regional variations would arise with local accents, and a widespread lack of spelling knowledge hundreds of years ago being a large part of that variation - 'sounds like' etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whippletree_(mechanism)

[Rick-n-Jo]

I am surprised that you didn't mention the Horseboating Society's website, Rick!

www.horseboating.org.uk

 

There are a good few photos in the Gallery section that show some of the details of the harness.

 

 

Sorry Martin! I type slowly with one finger, and it was getting past bedtime

 

(Martin does an exellent job looking after the HBS website, as well as his other sites.)

 

Here's a link to a 10 minute You Tube video of Buddy pulling "Maria" on the Peak Forest Canal at Marple. Plenty of views from behind showing the harness (in this case the spreader bar type) at work.

 

Links in the "related videos" alongside will take you to the Huddersfield Narrow, or down the Delph locks, or legging through Hyde Bank Tunnel. Nearly 2 hours of armchair horseboating. Bliss!

[Max Sinclair]

Horse Collars were joined at the top, whereas agricultural collars joined underneath. If a horse fell in the canal the top joint enabled the boatman to release it as a waterfilled collar could drown the horse. As per Les Allen, Oldbury.

[solwayrover]

Thank you all. Much invaluable information here. I got into this while trying to teach my black and white cob to haul logs, using gear like the constable detail. Every so often he gets the chains tangled round his leg and he hates that. Canal style harness would eliminate that problem, and who knows, if it works I'm not so far from the Lancaster canal or the Leeds and Liverpool. Might see you all on the towpath.

Andy Gowing

[Derek R.]

The most complete book on the subject, I think, is

 

"The Horse On The Cut" by Donald J Smith published in 1982. It's out of print now, but copies come up on Amazon, eBay etc. A quick Google found one for £10 here

for instance.

 

Rick

 

Many thanks for the link Rick, I'd been after something like that for my sister who has been horse mad all her life (75yrs now, and leaves me standing).

I now have the book in my possession, and must say I'm going to find it hard to pass on!! Some superb pictures I've never seen anywhere before. Worth its weight for sure - even for a motor boater like me.

 

Derek