# Dolly pegs and their bag

> Four hundred washdays on the line across the yard.

https://vitrine.themes.dev/collection/pegs/

- Made by: Pegs bought from a hawker; the bag sewn by Ada
- Date: 1930s
- Material: Willow, cotton ticking
- Size: Pegs 11 cm long
- Cost new: A penny for a dozen
- Came from: Dorothy Merrin’s house, 2009
- On view: The street, in the back yard

One-piece wooden pegs were sold door to door by travelling hawkers, who cut and shaped them by hand from willow. They have no spring to break, which is why so many outlived the washing lines they hung on.

The bag is made from the ticking of an old mattress. The line in the yard ran from the scullery window to the works wall, and on Mondays the grinders had to duck under the sheets to get to the privy.