Willow Lobster/Crab Traps as made in the UK called Withy Pots

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 "Withy" trap made for catching crabs in the UK. 

Withy Pots are the East Devon Style from Budleigh Salterton in Devon, UK. Dave French's family has made them for generations.

Dave French making a Crab/Lobster Pot out of Willow. This type of pot is called a "Withy" Pot.  He learned this craft from his grandfather. It is a dying art and virtually unknown in the USA. I have to say I am completely intrigued. My husband lobsters in Gloucester, MA with a non commercial license so I am familiar with lobstering. As a basket maker it seems like a possible fun project to try making one of two of these pots!

Dave uses bricks to weigh down the pot, tying them to the sides of the pot to stop it moving about. Apparently they use these in small trawls with bouys on either end just like we do in Gloucester, MA.

The start of the pot is done on this wooden pillar which holds and stabilizes the beginning weave.

One of Dave's students making a full size Withy Pot.

Weaving the bottom of the Pot

Trimming off the entrance 

Skeevers or sticks are used to hold the bait in the trap. I imagine they use a whole fish like they did in the old days in the wooden traps we used. My Dad always put a whole fish on a nail. These days we use bait bags. 

I met Dave French on a basket weavers group on Facebook. He sent me these photos. I am completely intrigued! 

You can do a search on Facebook for Dave French. He doesn't appear to have a website but he was very nice to share these photos with me. 

Now.... Where do I find a nice willow tree?

Happy Basket Making,

Melissa Abbott

If you love Basket Making, you have to Watch this VIDEO: "A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets" at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Film by Billy Ray Sims. 
Produced in conjunction with the exhibition "A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets" at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

"A Measure of the Earth" celebrates the generous gift of seventy-nine baskets to the Smithsonian American Art Museum by the noted collectors Steven R. Cole and Martha G. Ware, and the promised gift of twenty more. 

The 105 baskets on display were made between 1983 and 2011 and demonstrate the endurance of indigenous, African, and European basket weaving traditions in the United States. The Cole-Ware collection presents an encyclopedic view of this medium, and is notable for the care with which samples were collected. The sixty-three weavers represented craft their baskets almost entirely from un-dyed native materials—grasses, trees, vines, and bark—that they have gathered. The forms—from baskets for eggs, harvest, and market to those for sewing, laundry, and fishing creels—reveal the central role basketry has played in the everyday life of Americans.
website for Exhibition:
http://www.americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2013/baskets/