Wooden bat for “stool-ball”.

Collection type: Object
Description: Wooden bat for “stool-ball”.
Geographical reference: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; England East Sussex Mayfield
Cultural groups: English
Person: Maker Unknown Maker; Field collector Edward Burnett Tylor; PRM source Edward Burnett Tylor
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1801
Date collected: By 1910
Acquisition information: Donated: 1910
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Incised, Process Inscribed
Dimensions: Length: max 477 mm, Weight 255.6 g
Object numbers: Accession number: 1910.42.15
Research and responses: Stool-ball is “an old game resembling cricket still played in Sussex, especially by girls” [The Oxford Concise Dictionary: Oxford, 1965]. [CF 24/1/2000]
'Stoolball is an ancestor of Cricket and Bat and Trap and play is pretty similar to Cricket. The story goes that milkmaids started the game by throwing stones at their upturned stools while waiting for their shepherd husbands to return from the fields where they were passing the time throwing stones at "wicket gates", a kind of field gate.' [Source: online guide to Bat and Ball Games: http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Bat-Ball.htm] [ZM 12/9/2005]