On Tenter Hooks!

A day out in Trowbridge today. Not your normal stop on the tourist trail, but a visit to the local museum revealed the town’s very interesting industrial heritage.

Trowbridge is probably best known for its textile industry, and in its heyday, between 1850 and 1875, it was known as the Manchester of the West. The Town was renowned for the production of fine quality woollen cloth called broadcloth. Many of the cottages, mills and opulent houses of the mill owners and cloth merchants survive today.

The museum occupies one floor of Home Mills, a former cloth factory. And it was in this museum that I learned something new today. Once the woollen cloth had been fulled, it was hung out to dry in the sun, on tenter-racks. The phrase, ‘to be on tenter hooks’ (meaning to feel anxious), comes from the use of hooks on the tenter-rack, to keep the cloth taut.

There you go, an interesting fact for the day!