Swill basket making

Oak swill baskets are traditional to the southern Lake District and have been made for centuries. Their origins are unclear, but it is likely that they evolved as a cottage industry which then expanded after the industrial revolution into a trade in its own right. Swills were used on coal steamships, in mines, mills, ironworks and many other industries. They also had farm and domestic uses, but declined rapidly in the post-war years with the rise in mechanisation and plastics.

Swill making became semi-industrialised, i.e. moved from a cottage industry into larger swill shops, during the Industrial Revolution, to satisfy new needs for baskets in the industrial revolution, such as moving large amounts of charcoal from woodland to ships and trains and to help with the local iron ore industry. Swills were also used in bobbin mills, as well as in agriculture.

The craft started to decline after the wars with the rise of wire and plastic replacements and as woodspeople no longer valued their craft and encouraged their offspring into new vocations. Approximately thirty years ago three people learnt the craft from the last of the swillers – Stella Kenyon (now deceased), Mary Ullrich (then Mary Barrett, wrote a booklet on swill  that is now out of print), and Owen Jones.

• Managing oak coppice – felling trees, moving, splitting and extraction, pest protection (deer fencing)
• Cleaving oak stems with wedges and maul
• Extraction out of the woodland
• Riving boiled oak with knives and hands
• Cutting hazel coppice for bools
• Steaming and bending bools
• Soaking the oak
• Dressing oak taws with a knife over the knee
• Dressing oak spelks using a drawknife and a swillers  mare (a kind of shavehorse)
• Weaving the basket

Swills were made in a variety of different sizes. There were also variations in shape, such as the seedlip for sowing seed.

Similar woven oak baskets were made in Wales and the West Midlands, but they were not known as swills.

• The import of cheap baskets puts an unrealistic expectation of cost into the general public’s minds. There is a need to educate customers on the process of making a swill, the durability of the product, the continuation of the tradition and the enormous benefits to the biodiversity of our woodlands. They are not simply buying a basket. Although they might seem expensive, a basket could last for generations.
• Increasingly swills are bought via mail order or through retailers and the extra admin time involved increases the cost again. There is a market for swills but it involves expertise in social media, marketing, administration etc as well as the craft itself.
• Swill  basket making involves so many different processes so potential swillers must be able to and want to find and manage the woodlands, fell trees, extract them, process the wood, weave baskets , sell  them – its a big mix of skills involved and a lot to fit into a working week.
• Swill making is hard to categorise. The skills aren’t solely of basketry as it involves a lot of wood working. Parts of the process are greenwood working skills and techniques.
• Woodland owners often don’t see the need to manage their woodlands and might expect renumeration for it. Grant schemes, for example the Woodland Improvement Grant and Stewardship schemes, are directed at larger scale forestry operations so to keep swill woodland coppiced either involves coppicing lots more than is needed for the business – resulting in wasting good swill material and spending too much time finding a market for the bi-products – or working for free and having to fund deer fencing etc which puts up material costs.
• Bio-security – tree diseases are becoming more and more prevalent, usually due to the import of plants and slack bio-security at the borders.  Many native species are now seriously endangered by disease and there are a few threatening oak.
• Lack of affordable housing and workshop premises in the vicinity of the woodland. Lots of barns and suitable buildings are being converted to housing and new building are unaffordable.

• Basketmakers Association

• Scottish Basketmaking Circle

• National Coppice Federation

• Coppice Association North West

• Bill Hogarth Memorial Apprenticeship Trust

• Cumbria Woodlands

Lorna Singleton runs a 30 day spelk wood basketry course Wood, Water, Weave  which includes oak swill basketry.

Owen Jones also offers a number of 3 day courses making oak swill baskets.

• Owen Jones, Lake District. A full-time oak swill basket maker in Britain, taught by John Barker.
• Lorna Singleton, Lake District. Taught by Owen Jones; Lorna now runs her own full time business making oak and hazel swills.
• Florence Hamer
• Simon Cooper, the Bumbling Basketeer

The following have made swills but do not do so for their main living:

• Ruth Pybus – isn’t currently making but does have the skills and equipment
• Gay Goodson
• Helen Clarke

• A good video on the Wray style of swills
• Mary Barratt, Oak swill basket-making in the Lake District (ISBN 0950879606)
• The Basketmakers’ Association sell a double DVD of Owen Jones demonstrating the complete process from felling the tree to weaving the swill.

Our thanks go to our 2025 reviewers:

• Florence Hamer
• Simon Cooper

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