The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-167 - museum specimen

English folk / Norwich

United Kingdom - Norfolk - Norwich - St Paul's Parish - Europe

Function not recorded

The first of two Norwich Buzzer bullroarers from St Paul's Parish, Pitt Rivers Museum 1913.24.2.
The first of two Norwich Buzzer bullroarers from St Paul's Parish, Pitt Rivers Museum 1913.24.2. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1913.24.2) Image source
Representative—not this record’s object: Basque furrun-farra, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available...
Representative—not this record’s object: Basque furrun-farra, shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. Musée Basque et de l'histoire de Bayonne, via MIMO (CM 0852858/0852866) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Image source
The second Norwich Buzzer bullroarer from St Paul's Parish, Pitt Rivers Museum 1913.24.3.
The second Norwich Buzzer bullroarer from St Paul's Parish, Pitt Rivers Museum 1913.24.3. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1913.24.3) Image source

Buzzer English

Source term: Bullroarer

Buzzer: Norfolk English bullroarer name in Haddon and the PRM records; not a pull-cord buzzer mechanism

Two long wooden blades from St Paul's Parish, Norwich, carried the plain English name Buzzer. Their broad, slightly irregular forms preserve a city toy otherwise known through Norfolk memories as the humming buzzer. Who owned this pair, or on what streets they sounded, went unrecorded.

where it is called “humming buzzer,” or simply “buzzer”

Haddon 1898:278
Object
Two long wooden terminal-cord slats, 240 x 41 mm and 233 x 54 mm; exact PRM photographs.
Function
Function not recorded.
Map confidence
high - St Paul's Parish representative anchor in Norwich; not a documented use site.
Source location
PRM 1913.24.2-.3; 1913 Annual Report; Haddon 1898:278

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