Last week I enjoyed a very restorative short break in the Lake District with Dave and our two youngest boys, Tom and Toby (now 18 and 16 years old). Our route there and back took us past Clapham in the Yorkshire Dales, reminding Dave of potholing adventures he has had in the limestone caves of Clapdale, and reminding me of one of the knitting sheaths in my collection.
This sheath is particularly special to me for several reasons, the primary one being that it bears a bone plaque inscribed with the correct spelling of my name! Unusually for wooden sheaths from the Northern Yorkshire Dales, Clapdale sheaths are not in a goosewing shape, so can be used on either hip. This means as a left-handed mirror knitter I can use this one for my preferred knitting style.
Clapdale sheaths are very rare finds. In his authoritative work about knitting sheaths, a supplement for the Folk Life journal, Peter Brears only lists 3 that can be found in museum collections, making Clapdale sheaths the least represented of all the sheaths in his typography. I have 3 sheaths in my collection that may be Clapdale sheaths, but the one bearing my name is the only one that I am certain about. It is a remarkably close match to the Clapdale sheath that is illustrated in the Brears supplement.
He describes the main features of Clapdale sheaths as follows:
“The characteristic sheath of Clapham in north-west Yorkshire is square in section, with a straight shaft, carved terminal knob and a ball-cage. The lower section of the shaft is divided into a long, forked form by a central cut parallel with the face, the back ‘prong’ having a rounded terminal, while the slightly shorter front ‘prong’ terminates in a round or Y-shaped finial.”
I’m remarkably lucky to have one!
