Made in England The joy of a Sussex trug, by John Greeves
John Greeves celebrates something traditional and quintessentially English in the Royal Sussex Trug
THE Royal Sussex Trug is no ordinary vessel for cut flowers, vegetables and carrying the trowel and the secateurs. They are a fine example of traditional British craftsmanship at its best and Thomas Smith, the company that first made them, is approaching its 200th birthday. Owners of these trugs include Prince Charles and Meryl Streep, as well as thousands of folk like you or me.
The word “trug” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “trog” meaning a “trough” or boat shape, and they were originally made from solid wood. For hundreds of years they were indispensable farming tools, and Sussex farmers used their own version to measure grain and liquids. They were made in several sizes, from zero being a pint capacity to eight holding a bushel. The last known reference to these “trogs” was in an inventory from a farm in Newhaven, East Sussex, in the mid-1600s when “a dozen of trogs” was listed in the milking parlour.
In the 1820s Thomas Smith produced his first trugs in Hormes House, Herstmonceux, where he lived with his wife. Smith’s invention was based on the old idea of the “trog” but was lightweight, being made from sweet chestnut for the rim and handle and cricket bat willow for the boards. By making different shapes and sizes and adding handles and legs, his trugs proved to be ideal for many jobs both in the garden and on agricultural land.
When Queen Victoria saw
Thomas’s trugs for the first time at the Great Exhibition of 1851, she delighted in their utility, strength and lightness and ordered a large consignment. It’s rumoured that Thomas made every trug himself, loaded them on to a cart, then, accompanied by his brother Stephen, walked 60 miles to London to ensure safe delivery. Victoria was so pleased with them that she awarded Thomas the Royal Warrant, and so the Royal Sussex Trug was born.
After this, business flourished here, in many parts of Europe and internationally, with orders coming even from the Russian Imperial family. Other copycat trug-makers set up businesses in the surrounding area. At the peak of their popularity, there were 24 traditional trug-makers in the Herstmonceux area alone, with many more stretching from Kent down to Somerset.
Trug-making became a reserved occupation during the two World Wars and was considered vital to agriculture and the war effort. However, a marked change followed World War II when traditional farming underwent a massive change with mechanisation, and trug-makers were soon forced to turn their attention to other possibilities.
The story doesn’t end there, though. Today the original company, Thomas Smith’s Trugs, is owned by Robin Tuppen, a master trug-maker with over 35 years’ experience who, along with his fellow craftsmen, continues
the age-old tradition of trug-making. Today, 35 different styles of traditional trugs are made, as well as ten different styles of a contemporary trug called the South Down Range. Robin makes approximately 1,800 to 2,000 trugs a year, of which 40 per cent are exported abroad.
The Royal Sussex Trug is still made in the same way as it was 200 years ago. Sweet chestnut is used to make the handle and rims. Coppiced poles, no greater than eight inches in diameter and known as “Cooper poles” or “Trug bats”, are cut to the required length upon arriving at the workshop. Each pole is split with a cleaving axe which is hammered in with a wooden mallet called a maul. Once this has been done, each half is cleaved again by holding it between two pieces of wood that form a rudimentary vice known as a “brake”. The sweet chestnut pieces are then left to dry for about six weeks before they are split again.
These pieces are transferred to a shaving-horse and are shaved to the correct width and thickness using a draw knife. The ends are tapered and tacked together.
“It’s a very skilful job, all done by eye and that’s why it takes so long to master,” Robin says. A master trug-maker takes somewhere in the region of ten years to become fully qualified.
The chestnut is then steamed. Two strips are needed for the larger trug rim and one strip is required for the handle. Steaming makes the chestnut pliable, and takes about 15 minutes, depending on the dryness of the wood. One strip is removed from the steamer at a time and quickly shaped around a template block called a “former”. The handle and the rim require different sizes of formers, depending on the size of the trug and the craftsman has to work extremely quickly before the wood begins to stiffen.
“You’ve got about thirty seconds,” Robin says, “to shape the rim and secure it with a copper tack.” The same limited amount of time exists for shaping and securing the handle.
“Once the rim and handle have been fixed with the copper tacks, the craftsman uses a gate hook on the side of the willow brake to ensure the corners of the handle and rim are squared,” Robin says. The handle and
> rim are then nailed together to make the “frame” and are sent to the “Making Horse”.
The willow boards are made from the by-product of the English cricket bat industry. Nowadays these are cut down in slats in either 28 or 36 inch lengths and are then re-cut at the workshop to suit all the different sized trugs. Depending on its size, a trug will have five or seven boards each cut to a particular shape. The boards are then hand-shaved with the end thirds of each board shaved more, so they will become pliable and flex up. The boards are then placed in very hot water and the ends bent before they are ready for assembling.
The centre board is fixed first to the frame and this first fix is critical. “If you don’t get that right then the other boards won’t fit properly together,” Robin says. The two boards either side of the central board (called Seconds) are then attached. Four side boards (with two on either side), are then secured like the others with copper tacks.
Robin is passionate about the industry. Over the decades he has promoted his craft all over the world at every opportunity. He also sat on a Department of Trade & Industry Gardening Task Force and helped arrange promotional shows in the gardens of the British Embassy in Paris. He regularly gives talks and has recently set up a new nonprofitable company called the Sussex Trug Heritage Centre which he hopes will attract more members and safeguard the future of the craft.
Each spring and autumn he runs a two day Royal Sussex Trug appreciation course tutoring a small group of eight students who are guided by him and two other craftsmen in the art of trug-making. His appreciation course doesn’t instantly make the participant a qualified trug-maker, but at the end of the two days, the students leave with a great sense of achievement in making their first traditional Sussex trug.
Despite these efforts, Robin has concerns about the future of his craft.
“It’s the traditional trug-maker’s inactivity in opening their shops, in not promoting themselves and not getting people into the trade which is the biggest danger,” he says. Cheap imports claiming to be “genuine” are also swamping the internet. He wishes like Cornish pasties, Whitstable oysters and Yorkshire Wensleydale, that the Royal Sussex Trug could be given protected status.
“The use of a trug is only limited by a person’s imagination,” says Robin. He’s seen them be used in gardens and allotments, for horse feed, as a wedding bouquet holder, for dried floral displays, and as a container for sweets, toiletries, bathroom towels or soaps. He once sold trugs painted with green rims and handles to Gordon’s Gin. The company then used them at a press launch and journalists were each given a trug containing gin and a press pack.
A Swiss company uses trugs for hampers which they present to some of their valued customers. Even Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, received a trug as a gift when she visited Plumpton College in East Sussex. Her cucumber trug (also ideal for holding a magnum of champagne) was filled with wine. The list is endless.
“Trugs are funny things; inanimate but capable of creating a lot of emotions,” Robin tells me. One lady bought a log trug and christened it Trevor. Robin was then sent regular photographs of Trevor’s exploits!
Like us, trugs turn an attractive silver grey over time, enduring the cold of winters, the early spring showers and the flaming heat of June without complaint. If used solely indoors they eventually mellow to a rich, golden honey colour and become imbued with the warm devotion of a time-honoured friend, who remains constantly at hand.
Thomas Smith’s Trug Shop, Magham Down, East Sussex BN27 1PN.
01323 871640; sussextrugs.com.