The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MUS2026-180

Woodbastwick Norfolk bullroarer

United Kingdom · Norfolk · Woodbastwick · Europe

Play / practical

Haddon's 1898 engraving, fig. 38 no. 7: cord lashed into the notch-waist, trapezoid teeth down both edges.
Plate I. Haddon's 1898 engraving, fig. 38 no. 7: cord lashed into the notch-waist, trapezoid teeth down both edges. Public domain · Image source
Haddon’s plate of nine numbered British bull-roarer designs, drawn upright in varied shapes: plain, broad, rounded and saw-toothed blades, several with cords attached.
Plate II. Representative — not this record’s object. Haddon's full plate of bullroarers from the British Islands. Public domain · Image source

Buzzer

Source term: Bullroarer

Buzzer: the Norfolk name for the bullroarer, in full the 'humming buzzer.'

Large trapezoid teeth cut deep into both edges of this board, and its bundled cord is lashed into notches rather than threaded through a drilled hole — a sturdier rig than its Norfolk neighbors. A pencil mark on the wood reads only 'Woodbastwick,' the Broadland village near Wroxham that gave it its name. Its shape and cordage sit squarely within Norfolk's buzzer tradition, the same whirled toy children spun from Hemsby to Norwich to make a summer noise. Haddon engraved his Norfolk buzzers for The Study of Man in 1898 — and the seventh figure on his plate, cord lashed into its notch-waist, is this very board.

Woodbastwick. Norfolk.

MAA 1922.387, pencil marking (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge)

Particulars

Object
Rectangular wooden board with a pointed-oval cross-section, 256 x 35 mm, with large trapezoid serrations along both long edges; a bundled cord is lashed into notches at one end rather than through a drilled hole.
Function
Boys' toy — Haddon records the Norfolk 'humming buzzer' among the bullroarer toys of English boys.

Sources

  1. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, object 1922.387 View · archived
  2. A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), cited by the museum catalogue

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.