Note 134e — Chapter X · WORKHOUSE OR UNION.

The older ones among us will remember that in the days of our grandmothers the spinning wheel was usually to be seen in the boudoir, or drawing room. A common shrub of our hedgerows and copses is the spindle tree (euonymus europeus), so named because of its compact, yet light, wood was made the spindle of the spinster. An old MS., kept by Sarah Cleveland, shows how not only the poor but ladies of all ranks, like the Homeric Penelope and her maidens, practised spinning; the younger with a view to providing a marriage portion for themselves; whence, until marriage, they were called “spinsters,” a term still in use. [Berenden Letters of William Ward and his family, of Berenden, Kent, 1758–1821, edited by C. F. Hardy. Dent & Co., 1901.] It may be here mentioned that the ancient building in Boston named Shodfriars’ Hall, was formerly a spinning school. In the Parish Register of Wispington, in this neighbourhood, not only is the female mentioned as “spinster,” but the male is called “weaver,” and in the adjoining parish of Woodhall there is a “weavers’ close,” part of which is named “tailors’ garth,” in the same connection, and the present parish clerk’s grandmother, a Mrs. Oldfield, had herself a hand loom; and in the parish of Minting weaving is known to have been carried on extensively, an informant telling the present writer that his grandmother had a hand loom, see Records of Woodhall Spa, &c., under Minting, by the author. In Horncastle a weaver, named Keeling, formerly occupied the premises now the bookseller’s shop of Mr. Hugh Wilson; another lived in the house, 3, North Street, now occupied by Mr. G. Walkley.