The choice of digging tools, as with cutting tools, depends on how much one wants to specialise. Diggers and Devon shovels, although they have other uses, are designed first and foremost for banking and turfing. Mattocks and spades are all-purpose grubbing and earth-cutting implements.
Mattock or digger?
The ordinary mattock is largely replaced by the ‘digger ’ in the southwest. This grubbing tool has the mattock’s broad blade but lacks the pick or root-cutting blade. In some districts the digger is itself termed ‘mattock’, while the double-bladed tool is called a ‘twibill’.
In hedge laying either tool can be used to expose the base of the pleachers, especially when ‘laying from the root’. They are also useful when cleaning out ditches. In banking and turfing they are used to cut down damaged sections of bank and to widen out gaps to be repaired, as well as to grub out stumps and roots of shrubs from the bank sides. They are also used for tamping the earth fill which forms the bulk of the bank under the ‘skin’ of turfs. On high banks the digger is the better tamper since the mattock is awkward as it has to be used sideways on.
In either case keep the tool handle low to the bank so that the head doesn’t dig into the earth but instead compresses it. A stout stick can be used for consolidating fill if you don’t need to do any grubbing and so don’t want to carry either of these tools.
Spade or Devon shovel?
These are the basic turfing tools and are often used alone, especially on low banks. In Wales, special turf knives were formerly used to cut and lift the sods. They had curved blades which were sharpened on the outer edge, so that cutting and lifting were carried out in the same motion. Now these have disappeared from use, to be replaced by the ordinary spade. The spade is adaptable and especially suited to lower banks, where turfs do not have to be lifted above waist height. On high banks, though, the spade is tiring to use and turfs tend to slip off the nearly flat rectangular blade. The blade should be kept clean and sharp to make cutting easier.
The ‘Devon shovel’, which in Cornwall is just called the ‘shovel’, combines the functions of spade and shovel. This tool has a long handle or ‘shovel stick’, usually curved, and a triangular slightly bowl-shaped blade. The blade is thin and is kept sharp through use, but is filed if it becomes burred by stones.
Most craftsmen cut their own shovel sticks according to personal preference. The usual length is that, when held vertically, the end of the stick comes to the user ’s chin, with the point of the shovel touching the ground. Home- made sticks for diggers and shovels are often of willow, which is soft, light, resilient and ‘plum to handle’. Ash can be used although it is rather hard. Hazel, which tends to split, is a third choice.
The Devon shovel’s balance is determined by the curve of the stick and angle at which the stick joins the blade. With the correct curve, the shovel comes down in a position for digging, no matter how you turn it in your hands. This is why straight shop-bought handles are a poor substitute. The angle of the blade should allow a slight lift, but if it is too extreme, material slides off the blade when it is raised high up. If the angle doesn’t seem right, a blacksmith can alter it by bending the blade’s socket or eye.
As well as making for good balance, the long handle allows the shovel to be gripped in many different positions. The triangular blade can be pushed into the ground point first or edge first, either by hand or with the aid of the boot.
Unlike a spade, a good Devon shovel and shovel stick is very much a personal possession, perfectly suited to one person only. But any Devon shovel is a great deal easier to use on high banks than a spade.
