The four-wheeled tilted pot cart: the older name of this and of the two-wheeled kind is Potter’s Cart, from its use by Gypsies who, before the canals provided the potteries with their first hauled transportation, came to purchase, carry and hawk around the country cheap and faulty earthenware. It is elaborately built, boat shaped, fitted with a detachable canvas tilt or hood. The sides of some of the older makes are built of open-work spindle framing, but those made in later years have solid rib-and-matchboard sides. Like the living wagon, a pot cart has a pan-box and a spindle cratch at the back. The tilt is of heavy canvas on the bowed wood frame slotted into the sides of the cart, and there is a detachable match-board back with a small window. It has no interior fittings. Traditionally it has been used by Gypsies for extra sleeping accommodation and for carrying provisions and gear. Instead of the removable bowed tilt, it may be fitted with what is known as a ‘Yorkshire accommodation top’. This is a bed box 6ft x 3ft 10in x 9 in high, to which are fitted four hoops from head to foot about 4 ½ ft high. Covered with a wagon sheet and holding a palliasse, it may be used on the ground but, on the cart, is placed crosswise at the front, its short legs falling just within the sides of the cart, preventing it from sliding sideways and taking the weight off the rave which it overhangs either side. Go To Top ©From The English Gypsy Caravan by C.H. Ward-Jackson & Denis E. Harvey 1973 Edition

The two-wheeled pot cart is sometimes loosely called an ‘accommodation’ and is distinct from the four four-wheeled kind in that it is of much simpler and lighter construction. It, too, has a removable, barrel-shaped frame with canvas tilt and an accommodation top or let-down bed. The back, also, is of match-board with window, and the front has canvas curtains. There are many variations of it, more or less shaped up according to need and taste. It is probably the oldest kind of wheeled conveyance used by travelers. Usually it has struts to the shafts and others at the rear so that, unhorsed, it may stand in a level position, usually more securely maintained by poking the shafts into a hedge. ©From The English Gypsy Caravan by C.H. Ward-Jackson & Denis E. Harvey 1973 Edition Go To Top

The Brush, sometimes called a Fen wagon, was the home of the original door-to-door brush salesman. It is descendant of the kind possibly used by Old Fulcher, in Borrow’s The Romany Rye, circa 1825, and is believed to be extinct. It is straight-sided, with wheels outside the body like the Reading, but has no skylight. Its internal fittings are not dissimilar from those of other types. It has two distinctive characteristics: the half-door and glazed shutters are at the back instead of the front as in all other Gypsy vans, together with steps that are a fixture; and the exterior is equipped with spindled racks and glazed cases to accommodate brushes and brooms of various kinds and sizes, rush mats, baskets and other wickerwork articles made from sedges, willow, birch and similar materials indigenous to heath or marshland. Running all around the roof are three light iron rails, and sometimes trade-name boards, used for stowing bulkier goods. This type was used mainly by poshrats and didikais who made and traded in such wares, chair-mending, etc. In the 1920’s it was succeeded by the motor brush-wagon. Before the spread of the penny bazaar, these travelers were one of the main sources from which housewives bought their brushes, mats and baskets, and many cottages and farmhouses had their rush-bottomed chairs and wicker furniture. Go To Top ©From The English Gypsy Caravan by C.H. Ward-Jackson & Denis E. Harvey 1973 Edition