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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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From: Year of Wonder, by Geraldine Brooks
... the land all chewed up by miners, their stowes like skcaffolds upon the moors, and
their bings like weedy molehills interupting the pale mauve tide of of the heather..
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Joined: Mar 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In the coal mining industry in Scotland a 'bing' was a heap of colliery waste, so I guess it was, speaking more generally, a slag heap.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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bing is still used in scotland? i have never heard the word, and i have read novels set in mining communitites in scotland and in newcastle.
i thought most of these words were archaic. interesting to find out some are still alive and well!
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Joined: Mar 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
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Well, I say still used. In fact I found it in my Dictionary of Civil Engineering which was published by Penguin in 1958. So it may well have vanished by now. There is not much coal mining in Scotland now, and only open cast at that. I found this privately run website detailing the remaining coal workings in Europe broken down by area if you are interested: http://www.mining-europe.de/index.htm
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
In reply to:
'bing' was a heap of colliery waste, so I guess it was, speaking more generally, a slag heap.
Who are you calling a slag?
Bingley
Bingley
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear dxb: I get the bings. But I still don't get what "stowe" meant in "nicked his stowe" or whatever it was.
Interesting that "Stowe" is such a relatively common family name. I wonder what it meant in that connection.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Stowe seems to be literaly, a set of scaffolding erected at the enterence of a mine,(to support blocks/tackles and pullies and other mining equiptment) So a man can be pinned to a stowe with a knife. (as dxb pointed out in the nick a stowe thread!)
but it also represents 'a mine' -- when an other miner nicks a stowe, he removes ore from the mine, and so as not to be caught stealing it, leaves it at the stowe.. if he three times in 9 weeks manages to extract ore, he in effect takes claim to the mine, including the intack stowe (when a miner abandons a mine, they 'take down the stowe' and all that is left of a worked out mine is the adit (mine shaft entrance) and some 'stemples' piece of wood fixed in place as supports and sometimes serving as ladderlike rungs on steep shafts. the stowe, as lumber has a seperate value.
the town of Eyam, in real life darbyshire,is an area that grew oats (the soil was not good for wheat) apples, and had sheep and lead mines. the book is fiction, but there are some farmers, some miners, and some keep sheep. the old mining terms are the most interesting, as are the descriptions of the old mining techniques. Lead was (is it still?) a crown resourse.. miners can open a mine on any land, with out deed, all they have to do is procuce ore.. and pay a portion of the ore itself as a tax, (a dish of ore is about 40 pounds, about 2 pounds from each dish are paid into 'the king's dish'. the tax must be paid in lead ore. (the english had just finished a war with the netherlands (lowlands)) and lead needed for bullets!
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