The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Wheelwright Workshop in Stapley
Wheelwrights demonstrate their trade
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Overview
Master Wheelwright Fred and his son Chris discuss the profession with TV reporter Del Cooper at their workshop in Stapley, Somerset. Wheelwrights make and repair all types of wooden wheels and vehicles from carts, carriages, traps and wagons to Romany caravans and vintage motor cars. They also supply mill wrights and make furniture. A wheelwright will have a good selection of English hard woods and craft the wheel with an elm hub, oak spokes and ash felloes.
Wheelwrights are also liverymen. The livery companies of the City of London comprise London's trade associations and guilds styled as Worshipful Companies. The Worshipful Company of Wheelwrights based in Twickenham ensures the profession continues and most counties still have at least one or more with new apprenticeships on offer. A wheelwright would have worked alongside a wainwright, a coach builder, a coach trimmer and a blacksmith but where trades have died out, names remain, such as the Wheelwright Inn, the Old Smithy or the Forge conjuring up the novels of Dickens and Austen.
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