The Bullroarer Atlas

MUS2026-185 - museum specimen

English folk / Tewkesbury

United Kingdom - Gloucestershire - Tewkesbury - Europe

Function not recorded

Tewkesbury “whizzing stick” with surviving cord, PRM 1902.51.6.
Tewkesbury “whizzing stick” with surviving cord, PRM 1902.51.6. Image source

Whizzing stick English

Source term: Bullroarer

Whizzing stick: English folk name in the museum's local-name field, which also records 'buzzer' as an alternative name.

Thirteen holes burnt clean through its face and both edges carved into deep waves make the Tewkesbury blade the showiest of the English folk whirlers Miss Ogden of Oxford's High Street gave the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1902 — someone inked the town's name straight onto the wood. A single cord still hangs knotted through its end, and the museum keeps its plain folk name too: whizzing stick.

Wooden 'Bullroarer' with 13 holes burnt into it and deeply indented sides.

Pitt Rivers Museum 1902.51.6
Object
Carved wooden slat, 145 x 45 mm, with deeply indented sides, thirteen burnt holes across the face, and a single cord knotted through the suspension end; exact PRM photograph.
Function
Function not recorded.
Map confidence
high - OpenStreetMap Tewkesbury town anchor matching the museum provenance; not a documented use site.
Source location
PRM 1902.51.6

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