The Farmer found them in the loft and had no idea who they belonged to but he thought they had been in the loft since the early sixties. The style suggests the 1860's.
I have no earthly idea what to do with them but they have come up like new. No doubt they will be dried and put back into the loft for another 50 years until a grandchild finds them and thinks that his predecessors were large of bum.
I wonder if this large wearer of said cords had a hand in making the fertilizer spreader which sits where it was left many decades ago.
It is a real stroke of ingenuity and an object of rusty beauty, I think.
The axle has come from a Model T Ford and I have no idea what the hopper once was but the entire thing was put together for the ease of spreading fertilizer over the top (and least fertile) field.
It is quite large and very heavy, just like the owner of the mystery cords. I wonder if he had a hand in drawing the fertilizer up the steep hill and how it got up there? Was it pulled by horses or an early tractor?
The trousers have a faint line at the calf which suggests that twine was wrapped around them to stop rats running up the leg. Touchingly, there is a little handful of oat seed in the pocket.
Today, I will think about the big man who worked here.
Great post, so interesting to think about the owner of the cords, and the life he lived.
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