Cumbrian swill baskets were stout & durable being made from oak strips, carrying anything from wool & eggs to nails, coal, ore & peat and in all sizes. This basket maker from the wooded Leven valley had strength & skill in his tough hands to craft reluctant wood into dozens of baskets a day. He worked in a small community at Haverthwaite where his baskets could have been used by the local charcoal burners, at the Blackbeck gunpowder works or much further abroad. The abundant forest around this valley provided Oak, Ash and Hazel for other work from chair legs to clogs and these woodsmen proudly worked with adze, knife and chisel these versatile timbers.