The use of a pole lathe for making bowls is now well known – the craft went into eclipse in the 1950s but resurged with the growing interest in all things related to greenwood work and is now fairly widespread.
One thing less frequently made now, but very common during what we might call the ‘Wooden Bowl’ period (roughly from Saxon times until the eighteenth century) is the wooden platter. These can be very simply turned from a piece of plank and do not require any depth in comparison with even a shallow bowl.
This picture shows a set of six beech platters made after the Mary Rose pattern – in Tudor times these would have been stamped with the King’s initials on the back. These were stamped ERII!
