Told You I Was Ill: Trains

Friday 5 February 2010

Signal failure at my local station. If it isn't mended by 11, I won't be able to go. I am on tenterhooks, whatever a tenterhook is!

Jackie Sayle said...: Hope you got there!

Tenterhooks were used as far back as the fourteenth century in the process of making woollen cloth. After the cloth was woven it still contained oil from the fleece and some dirt. A fuller (also called a tucker or walker) cleaned the woolen cloth in a fulling mill, and then had to dry it carefully or the wool would shrink. To prevent this shrinkage, the fuller would place the wet cloth on a large wooden frame, a "tenter", and leave it to dry outside. The lengths of wet cloth were stretched on the tenter (from the Latin "tendere", to stretch) using hooks (nails driven through the wood) all around the perimeter of the frame to which the cloth's edges (selvages) were fixed so that as it dried the cloth would retain its shape and size.[1] At one time it would have been common in manufacturing areas to see tenter-fields full of these frames.

Now you know!:-); 5 February 2010 at 08:43
hydra said...: That is fascinating! Thanks, Jacula.; 6 February 2010 at 05:00

Told You I Was Ill