2/2 Here we see a ‘Tailor’s Board’ from an old house in Victoria Street, Kirkwall. This early ironing board is 550mm in length and 160mm wide, with five circular indentations. Courtesy of Orkney Museum, Object No. OM-18703, Accession number 1977.016.

1/2 A key part of a tailor’s work was ironing fabric, as seen by ‘goose irons’ in Tailors’ arms across Scotland. But what did they do their ironing on? Images: Pencaitland tailor's stone; Dutch iron; Detail from van Brekelenkam, ‘The Tailor’s Workshop’ (c.1661), Rijksmuseum, NL, Public Domain.

(2/2) But – it appears our Kirkwall tailor also was selling (?) a golf club and two balls; a ream of paper; and books: 6 copies of Proverbs and 2 copies of the Psalms. His inventory was worth over £102 Scots. #KirkwallTailorsProject

(1/2) The inventory of one of our Kirkwall tailors in 1650: inter alia, 3 kistis; a pint stoup; a chair; a furnished bed; lint & woollen spinning wheels; silk; French ribbons; cloth, including buckram; papers of pins; thimbles and lots of buttons… #KirkwallTailorsProject

Tailor’s ‘goose’ iron from Gouda, Netherlands.

Interesting items in this Kirkwall tailor's 1650 inventory: Silk, French thread and bolts of 'camelhair' cloth! What is the last word in the entry though? #palaeography #skystorians

For more on tailors’ candlesticks and early modern lighting generally, see:
www.academia.edu/42120239/Pro...

Tailors’ candlesticks, seventeenth century, as recorded in the PSAS ( @socantscot.bsky.social ). Note the larger depression for an oil lamp with candle sockets in the corners. journals.socantscot.org/index.php/ps...

A copper-alloy pin found on archaeological excavations of an eighteenth-century Waggonway at Cockenzie. A common object for tailors like those of Kirkwall as well.

Sibilla Garioch died in April 1634, and was the spouse of William Garioch, tailor in Lythes, South Ronaldsay. Map: NLS, Adair 1 (1682), showing location of Lythe compared with Kirkwall on Pomonia (the main island).

Detail from the 1638 testament of Sibilla Garioch.

Gravestone of a Pencaitland Tailor from 1673. Note the symbols of the trade: the scissors and ‘goose’, or iron.

While most of the Kirkwall Tailors’ work is long gone, occasional finds of clothing turn up in the archaeological record, as detailed in Henshall’s PSAS piece on a 1968 find in a peat bog at Huntsgarth, Orkney. archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/ar...

Volunteers are welcome to join the project to help in the transcription! All volunteers will be named as co-editors, whether you contribute a line or multiple pages. For more info, contact the project lead, Aaron Allen, on administrator@kirkwalltailorsproject.co.uk
#palaeography #Orkney

The KTP is a community-based transcription project, aiming to fully transcribe and eventually publish a critical edition of the Records of the Kirkwall Incorporation of Tailors, 1669-1772. Their minute book, formerly on display in Orkney Museum, is being photographed by @orkneylibrary.bsky.social .

The Kirkwall Tailors Project begins!