Burgh Castle<\/strong><\/a> in Suffolk, still show flint in their structures.\u00a0 Testament to the robustness of flint.\u00a0 During the Saxon and Norman periods flint was used in the construction of many churches, including all the round towers in East Anglia – 41 in Suffolk and 119 in Norfolk.<\/p>\nBy the Middle Ages flint had been perfected to be more than a simple\u00a0building material.\u00a0 It now became more intricate in its detail.\u00a0 Cubes of flint were worked, laid flush in 15th and 16th century churches – known as ‘flushwork’.\u00a0 The edges were so flush that not even the thinnest of knives could be placed between the flints.\u00a0 Later a chequer style was incorporated into fine buildings, such as the Guildhalls in King’s Lynn and Norwich.<\/p>\n
Gun flints<\/h4>\n
It was during the Napoleonic Wars that Brandon profited most from flint.\u00a0 Brandon was late in making gun flints, there were already established businesses in places such as Lewisham, Maidstone, Purfleet and Salisbury.\u00a0 So Brandon would have failed miserably as a centre for gun flints had it not been for one defining attribute – the black\u00a0flint in and around Brandon was of the best quality.\u00a0 Such was the reputation of the quality achieved by the Brandon flintknappers’ that by 1800 Brandon was the sole supplier to the Board of Ordnance.\u00a0 The Battle of Waterloo is supposed to have been won on the playing fields of Eton.\u00a0 It can be claimed with equal justification that it was won in the flint yards of Brandon.\u00a0 All the gun flints used in the British guns, which wrought havoc among Napoleon’s cavalry and infantry, were solely made in Brandon.\u00a0 A Brandon flint was reckoned to be good for 50 shots, far exceeding its\u00a0rivals.\u00a0 At the height of war, in 1813, Brandon flintknappers were supplying over ONE MILLION<\/strong> musket flints each month.<\/p>\n\nFlintknapping<\/h4>\n
The\u00a0flintknappers day would typically start at\u00a0about 7am, with breaks for breakfast, dinner and tea.\u00a0 They would work for 10 hours a day and aim to knap 2,000 gun flints by the end of that day.\u00a0 They seldom finished before 8pm.\u00a0 There was no flint working on Mondays, while only the first hour on Saturday was used for knapping, the rest of the day was set aside for “telling-out” – counting all the flints that had been knapped during the week.\u00a0 There is\u00a0record of an 11-year-old being taken on for a 7-year\u00a0apprenticeship for flintknapping, eventually entering the trade proper aged 18.\u00a0 The environment created by the flint dust, coupled with the often damp conditions they worked in, caused many early deaths among the knappers, with them dying from\u00a0ilicosis, bronchitis or pneumonia.\u00a0 In fact one workshop\u00a0recorded that seven of its eight men died early, while at another workshop a father and three sons died within a\u00a0four year period.<\/p>\n
Three stages to flintknapping<\/h4>\n
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”16″ gal_title=”Flintknappers”]<\/p>\n
\n- The QUARTERER<\/strong>, using a 3lb hammer taps lightly at a flint nodule balanced against a pad\u00a0strapped to his left thigh.\u00a0 He is sensing the flint’s weak points and relies on the hammer’s weight to crack it into workable ‘quarters’.<\/li>\n
- The FLAKER<\/strong> holds the ‘quarter’ against his thigh pad and uses a pointed hammer of soft steel to flake ‘double-ridged backs’ or ‘single-backs’.<\/li>\n
- The KNAPPER<\/strong> knaps the flakes into gun flints.\u00a0 His hammer is of old steel, 9-inches long and 1-inch wide.\u00a0 He sits in front of\u00a0a small anvil set into a wooden block, or a tree stump. He trims the edges of the flake in an anti-clockwise rotation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The flintknappers of Brandon<\/h3>\n
Name, address – known dates of business<\/em><\/p>\n\n- William Clark, 1823-1830<\/li>\n
- Josiah Curson, 1823-1839<\/li>\n
- Edmund Snare, 1823-1830<\/li>\n
- John Snare, 1823-1830<\/li>\n
- John Utting, 1823-1830<\/li>\n
- BRANDON JOINT STOCK GUN FLINT COMPANY, Lode Street, 1823-1830<\/li>\n
- Thomas Towler, Thetford Road, 1844<\/li>\n
- William and George Claxton, Bury Road, 1846<\/li>\n
- John Snare, Thetford Road, 1846-1868<\/li>\n
- Jephtha Jacobs, London Road, 1846-1868<\/li>\n
- James Jacob, Thetford Road, 1858-1865<\/li>\n
- William Peverett & Co., Thetford Road, 1850<\/li>\n
- James Snare, Thetford Road, 1850<\/li>\n
- Arthur Snare, 1858-1865<\/li>\n
- William Edward Snare, Thetford Road, 1858-1868<\/li>\n
- William Carter, Thetford Road, 1855-1865<\/li>\n
- William Carter & Sons, 1855 only<\/li>\n
- James Clarke, 1858-1864<\/li>\n
- Lewis Hyam, Thetford Road, 1858-1865<\/li>\n
- Robert Leech, 1858<\/li>\n
- Henry Curson, Town Street, 1864-1868<\/li>\n
- Abraham Wigger, Coulson Lane, 1865-1868<\/li>\n
- William Edwards, Thetford Rosd, 1865-1868<\/li>\n
- James Field, Fox & Hounds, Thetford Road, 1865-1868<\/li>\n
- Robert Curson, Thetford Road, 1865-1874<\/li>\n
- Mrs Lucy Eunice Snare, 1874<\/li>\n
- Robert John Snare, 1874-1900<\/li>\n
- William and Albert Carter, London Road, 1896-1904<\/li>\n
- Isaac Field & Sons, Thetford Road, 1900<\/li>\n
- Isaac Field & Sons, Town Street, 1904-1908<\/li>\n
- Albert Field, Thetford Road, 1904-1908<\/li>\n
- J Edward Field, Thetford Road, 1904<\/li>\n
- Robert Field, Thetford Road, 1908<\/li>\n
- John Robert Carter, London Road, 1908<\/li>\n
- Robert H Wharf, Thetford Road, 1904-1908<\/li>\n
- Edward Edwards, Thetford Road, 1904-1908<\/li>\n
- Frederick Edwards, Thetford Road, 1908<\/li>\n
- Albert Carter, Thetford Road, 1916-1917<\/li>\n
- Robert Victor Edwards, 50 Thetford Road, 1916-1922<\/li>\n
- Fred Snare, George Street, 1904<\/li>\n
- Fred Snare, Town Street, 1908<\/li>\n
- Fred Snare, 7 Church Road, 1917-1929<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0Neolithic times Neolithic settlers were attracted to the Breckland region because the light sandy soil was easier to clear of trees and to cultivate.\u00a0 The densely wooded clay soil around the ‘Brecks’ were deemed more problematic.\u00a0 It was this clearance of trees that created the demand for large quantities of flint axes.\u00a0 In some place<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":36,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-326","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/326\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandonheritage.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}