The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-169 - museum specimen

English folk / Otterbourne

United Kingdom - Hampshire - Otterbourne near Winchester - Europe

Function not recorded

Representative—not this record’s object: English folk bullroarer, Suffolk (Lovett collection), shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this...
Representative—not this record’s object: English folk bullroarer, Suffolk (Lovett collection), shown as a regional stand-in; no image of this record’s own object is available yet. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1894.42.1) Image source
Wooden bull roarer from Suffolk, England, collected by folklorist Edward Lovett — National Museum of American History DL.211913.
Wooden bull roarer from Suffolk, England, collected by folklorist Edward Lovett — National Museum of American History DL.211913. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (DL.211913) Image source

Source term: Bullroarer

In 1882, a small bullroarer made not of wood but of copper turned up at Otterbourne, south of Winchester. Heavy notches bite into both edges of the thin metal blade, and its original cord still hangs from the hole at the pointed end — a copper voice where every neighbouring hummer and buzzer was cut from wood.

Bullroarer of copper. Collected or made in Otterbourne, near Winchester in 1882

Horniman Museum and Gardens 7.206
Object
Notched copper blade, 129 x 51 x 1 mm, with one terminal suspension hole and a surviving 272 mm heavy cord; exact Horniman photograph.
Function
Function not recorded.
Map confidence
high - Otterbourne village anchor matching the museum provenance; not a documented use site.
Source location
Horniman 7.206

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