The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-172 - museum specimen

St Ives bullroarer and Buzzer pair

United Kingdom - Cambridgeshire - St Ives - Europe

Play / practical

The corded, saw-edged member of the St Ives pair, Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.51.4.
The corded, saw-edged member of the St Ives pair, Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.51.4. Image source
The broad plain member of the St Ives pair, Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.51.3.
The broad plain member of the St Ives pair, Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.51.3. Image source

Bull roarer / Buzzer English

Source term: Bullroarer

Bull roarer / Buzzer: the two museum-recorded names for the St Ives pair

St Ives preserved two styles side by side: a broad plain board and a narrow saw-edged blade with its cord still coiled beside it. Their blunt English names were Bull roarer and Buzzer.

Long wooden 'Bullroarer' with small serrations.

Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.51.4
Object
Two carved wooden terminal-hole slats: one plain oblong blade, 217 x 60 mm, and one serrated blade, 197 x 36 mm, retaining its cord; exact PRM photographs.
Function
Boys' toy on Haddon's England-wide account of the instrument; St Ives's historic Huntingdonshire is not among the counties he names, though its pair carry the same Bull roarer and Buzzer names he collected elsewhere.
Map confidence
high - OpenStreetMap St Ives town anchor matching the museum provenance; not a documented use site.
Source location
PRM 1902.51.3-.4

View source Open this point on the interactive map