[5] "Antique and Modern Lace," in the _Queen_, 1874. The last chapter is devoted to Honiton Lace.
There is another very fine specimen in Combe Martin Church, the effigy of Judith Hancock (1637). The figure is life-size, and the dress is covered with point-lace and looped with points of ribbon.
The reason of the coarseness of early lace was that pins were rare and fetched a high price, and the humble workers in cottages employed fish-bones about which to twist their threads, stuck into the parchment in the shape of the pattern. The bobbins were made of "sheeps' trotters." It is now very difficult to procure specimens of this fishbone-lace.
The lace produced by James Rodge and his contemporaries had large flowing guipure patterns, united by _bride_ picotees, the latter worked in with the Brussels ground. _Brides_ are the small stripes or connection of threads overcast with stitches which bind the sprigs together. The English lace-makers could not make this exquisite stitch with the thread that England produced, and the thread was brought from Antwerp. At the end of last century it cost from £70 to £100 per pound. Old Brussels lace was made on pillows, while the modern Brussels is worked with needles.
The visitor to Honiton, Beer, or any village around may see lace-making on pillows. The women have round or oval boards, stuffed so as to form a cushion, and placed on the knees of the worker: a piece of parchment is fixed over the pillow, with the pattern drawn on it; into this the pins are stuck through holes marked for the purpose. Often as many as four hundred bobbins are employed at a time on a pillow. Many of the "bobbins" and "turns" to be seen in Devonshire cottages are very old: the most ancient are inlaid with silver. On some, dates are carved, such as 1678 or 1729. On some, Christian names are cut, such as John and Nicholas; probably those of the sweethearts of the girls who used them. Jingles, or strings of glass beads, may be seen hanging to them, with a button at the end, which came from the waistcoat of the John or the Nicholas who had given the bobbin as a keepsake. What life-stories some of these old bobbins could tell![6]
[6] The _Devon and Exeter Gazette_, December 31st, 1885.