Wheelbarrows

Cleaning, fixing, using, repairing, best and worst of your mechanical aids in the garden...

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Monika
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We recently bought ourselves a large jigsaw puzzle to do over Christmas and the new year. The picture shows a big, old-fashioned allotment site with a railway line in the background, carrying a passenger train pulled by a little black steam engine, so it will be fun to do. But in the foreground stands a metal wheelbarrow with a red wheel with, it appears, a solid rubber wheel. It seems too modern in comparison to the rest of the picture.

Now, does anybody know, from memory or research, when wooden wheelbarrows were gradually replaced by metal ones? My husband, in his mid-70s, thinks his parents still used a wooden one in the 1940s or probably even 1950s.
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alan refail
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Hi Monika
When I was young the toolshed/storehouse for the "big house" across the road was at the bottom of our garden. The only wheelbarrows there were large, heavy, green-painted wooden ones with large pneumatic tyres. They were certainly in use throughout the 1950's.
I can't suggest when the lighweight metal barrow with red plastic solid wheel first appeared, but it must have been well before 1974 when James Dyson invented his ballbarrow, as the selling point of this one was that the ball did not sink into wet ground like the narrow solid wheel in use on metal barrows. Perhaps Old Herbaceous or Clive (barrow men both!) could fill in the missing bit of information.

Then again, the artist had probaly never seen a wooden barrow, but had seen a steam train.
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Clive.
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Hello,
I used to push a wooden barrow at my Grandads in the 1970s...it was mighty heavy as it had the wheel far out front so no chance of loading over the front to take the weight off the handles....

At work we still have a wooden barrow in the back of one shed...it is there for old times sake but with some wind in its tyre it would be serviceable...I believe Charlie would have used it into the 1980s

My Mum & Dad were bought a solid wheel black navvy builders barrow as a wedding present in 1955... It had a very sturdy frame with the tubing being really thick walled more akin to scaffold tube. It always used to live in garage or shed but then had a few years outside and eventually the top rusted out..by chance I was gifted a new old stock top..so it was restored to full health....only to be nicked and lifted from the back of our shed as a means of transport for next doors lawnmower, chainsaw, circular saw, hedgecutter etc .....it must have taken some pushing with its solid wheel as it exited via the back field... I traced the wheeling as far as could 'til it met the solid farm track.................

At my first gardening job in the summer holidays mid/late 1970s my "uncle" had an old lightweight barrow with thin tin galvanised top and rusted frame, solid narrow wheel. Its handle grips had been comprised of shaped pieces of wood bolted each side of the metal strip handles..the wood was long gone but the bolts were still rusted in there....evidently pretty old.

Perhaps have Google under wheel barrow patents..it is quite interesting.. :wink:

Meanwhile,...is the railway scene painted from a preserved scene.?..they have been on the go a good few years....The Bluebell Railway in Sussex celebrating 50 years since the start of the preservation society...

I wonder...can you see the number of the locomotive in the scene.??

Clive.
Last edited by Clive. on Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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oldherbaceous
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I wasn't being rude not answering until now but, Clive is always so much better with words than i am, especially when it comes to descriptions.
I think along with the wooden wheelbarrows would have been wrought iron wheel barrows. These would have been used mainly for constuction jobs, Railways, Canals and the like, then probably found their way into large gardens.

The Galvernised ones, well i'm not sure, maybe the fourties!

Often these pictures are fairly modern ones taken with the appropriate items, maybe they missed the wheelbarrow.
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
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Clive.
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..much better with words :?: :shock: ....

I've just re-read my nonsense and found umpteen mistakes hence the edit... :oops: :wink:

My toy wheel barrow in my avatar...with its red wheel...dates from 1963.

Clive.
Monika
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Many thanks everybody! We have a number of old gardening books from the 40s and 50s and all show wooden wheelbarrows in the illustrations.

The railway engine is "indeterminable" (i.e. artist's licence!) and one cannot see a number on it. We have also just discovered a "Dig for Victory" poster on the jigsaw puzzle, so it is obviously meant to represent a wartime scene and the wheelbarrow shown is an anachronism!! We'll still enjoy putting it together.
Monika
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Back again!

We have just found that you can see the jigsaw picture on www.thehouseofpuzzles.com
Click on "Dalmore collection" (1000 pieces) and it's the puzzle about fourth down on the left hand side.

The engine bears the British Railways writing with the unicycling lion in the centre which, I am told, was only used a short time in the late fifites and early sixties. So the "Dig for victory" poster on the shed door has either lasted very well or the whole picture is a mishmash of times in any case, with the modern wheelbarrow!
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Clive.
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The wheelbarrow looks a newer version of the one that my "uncle" got in the late 1970s to replace the rusty one I refered to earlier....newer, because in the website link does it look to have a moulded plastic wheel.??

Perhaps the plan is to put a gaff in the pictures to get the jigsaws a mention on every subjects forums just before Christmas.??!! :wink:

It's a bit of fun to spot such mix ups....like watching the Pride & Prejudice that was once filmed at my work location...
...if you briefly take your eyes off Elizabeth played by the lovely Elizabeth Garvie :wink: ...in the background is the 1970s red lead painted Aga oil tank. :oops: ..

Clive.
landie57
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I have just had a look in my old 1937 MAC (Metal Agencies Company, Bristol) catalogue and it shows both wooden and metal garden wheelbarrows.
Wooden with pneumatic tyre cost 55 shillings (£2.75), with wooden wheel 29/6 (£1.475).
Steel barrow with wrought iron wheel 24/9 (£1.24).
'Ironcrete' galvanizd barrow with flat rubber tyre Junior model 12/6 (62.5p) Super de Luxe 32/6 (£1.625).
Might be worth going on the VHGMC website forum and asking there.
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Clive.
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Hello Landie57,
The galvanised barrow that I refer to in an earlier post would I suspect go a good number of years back with its handle sections of wood bolted each side of the flat strip handles....and I seem to recall that its other contruction featured much shaped flat metal strip?...and quite possibly could have been an "Ironcrete" brand that you mention..

The actual barrow featured in the jigsaw has lightweight tubing and the whole shape of the frame and handle bends looks very 1980s or even newer.

..and ref VHGMC....I have been known to appear there.. :wink:

Clive.
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