Welsh Lovespoons


Dave Western researches the history of this traditional Welsh craft

Table of Contents

The lovespoon has become something of an icon of Wales and is a favourite project among woodcarvers. With origins dating back over 350 years, lovespoons were carved across Europe for a range of romantic purposes. From ‘testing the waters’‚ to courtships to wedding celebrations, ornately decorated lovespoons were given as a way for young men to demonstrate both the intensity of their ardour and their ability as craftsmen.

Although the carving of lovespoons for their original purposes had largely died out throughout most of Europe, it is experiencing something of a revival as woodcarvers and romantics once again enjoy the challenge of carving them. They are now presented and enjoyed at a range of celebrations, such as weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and christenings, which mostly fall beyond the original borders of the tradition.

Sadly, a great deal of internet misinformation and the overwhelming presence of souvenir industry spoons has resulted in the vast majority of modern lovespoons being pale imitations of their historical ancestors. Without an understanding of the meanings, purpose and craftsmanship of the lovespoon, it is difficult for contemporary carvers to create evocative lovespoons which carry on the tradition in a worthwhile fashion. Having a grasp of traditional methods and design will go a long way towards helping modern-day carvers create lovespoons that will carry on the lovespoon’s rich tradition of elegance, skill, romance and symbolism.

Wooden Welsh love spoon with intricate heart design.

A Welsh Tradition

Probably the best known of the spoon-carving countries is Wales and, as the only country where lovespoon carving continues in an appreciable way – quite possibly due to the same souvenir industry, which ironically has smothered inventive design and stylistic beauty – Wales is fortunate to have a number of excellent museum collections for study and a number of excellent practising craftsmen who keep the tradition alive and vibrant.

Welsh lovespoon carving was romantic, dynamic and somewhat eccentric. Nowhere is this borne out more clearly than in the broad-handled ‘panel’ type spoons, which were developed by carvers seeking a more expansive palette on which to display their skills. While not a strict historical copy, the panel spoon we are using as a pattern here is an amalgamation of several similar antique lovespoons and is an accurate representation of the style.

Understanding Welsh Lovespoons

Welsh lovespoon carving is generally a much less conservative endeavour than its Continental counterpart. With a wider variety of symbols and a much more eclectic range of styles, the Welsh lovespoon often appears to be much more passionate and much more readily wears its heart on its sleeve.

Styles range from simple panel spoons up to masterworks of chain-link and balls-in-cages crowned by ornate swivels, anchors or even working whistles. Judging by the level of effort which seems to have gone into most of the historical examples still in existence, these spoons were given with serious intent and most probably when the response was liable to be positive. However, there’s no evidence that the acceptance of the spoon by the young lady constituted a ‘betrothal’; most likely, it simply gave the young man a green light to initiate a relationship.

Symbolism

Here you can see an example of a traditional panel lovespoon. Even though this simple spoon displays only a small number of symbols, it nevertheless imparts a good deal of romantic information.

Decorated wooden love spoon with symbolic carvings.

Historical examples

Welsh lovespoons do not appear to have evolved in an orderly, linear progression from simple to difficult. The oldest known example – dated 1667 – is an extremely sophisticated piece, which features ball-in-cage carving, while some more recent pieces appear much cruder in craftsmanship. Two distinct ‘types’ of spoons seem to exist, though: narrow, open spoons, which often feature ball-in-cage or link carving and the broader panel spoon, like our pattern example above.

Narrow-handled spoon

Decorative Welsh lovespoons with detailed carvings

This narrow-handled lovespoon is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Although badly damaged, the spoon is elegant and very skilfully carved, featuring a delicate four-chamber ball-and-cage arrangement. Its sophistication, extreme technicality and the fact that at least three identical versions of this spoon are known to exist, indicate that this lovespoon was very likely the work of a professional woodcarver.

The same spoon viewed side-on clearly shows the elegance of the design. Simple, but effective chip patterning further refines an already marvellous spoon.

Panel spoons

Decorative antique metal spoons with intricate patterns

The panel-style spoon was developed as a way by which carvers could increase the area available to them for their displays of skill and passion. Many of them are, like the larger example above, quite straightforward – with symbols such as the hearts for love, the wine glasses for celebration or ‘plenty’ and the six-pointed flower wheel of eternity – but later, when fretting became fashionable, became extremely ornate and lacy.

The smaller version above is a later example of a small panel spoon – likely late 19th century. It is wonderfully balanced and evocative despite its simplicity. Spoons such as this would have been carved by lovestruck young men using very basic tools. Even the crudest spoons show evidence of having been carefully and conscientiously worked. Note the graceful bowls common on all these spoons.

Double-bowled spoons

Carved wooden Welsh love spoon with hearts and patterns.

In this example, the panel has been taken to extremes and a second bowl has been added. Said to indicate ‘we two are as one’ or the union of two souls, the double-bowl spoon sometimes appears on the Continent at wedding celebrations. Then, the idea was for the young couple to eat their first meal together using the same spoon. There is no known evidence that this was the case with Welsh double-bowled spoons, though. The curious squared tips of the bowls on the spoon above are not a design statement. Lovespoons would have been hung on a wall for all to see and admire and would occasionally fall to the stone floor below. When the bowl contacted the ground, the tips would be broken away and a straightforward fix was simply to square the end of the spoon. Throughout museum collections, many spoons illustrate this type of damage and repair.

Carving a spoon

You will need:

Tools

  • Axe, coping saw or scrollsaw for rough shaping and fretting
  • Drill for starting fretwork
  • Straight knife – 20mm or 38mm blades are ideal
  • Bent knife for shaping bowl although you can use gouges to do this
  • Small hand saw for notching handle/stem and thinning handle
  • 150-grit cloth-backed abrasive
  • 20mm straight chisel – for chamfering bowl and handle backs
  • Needle files for cleaning fretwork
  • Small hand scraper – optional
  • Selection of fine abrasive papers for final finishing
  • Disposable paintbrush
  • Clear Danish oil – or similar
  • Beeswax polish

Wood

  • Birch, sycamore, lime or similar light toned hardwood measuring 115 × 355 × 20mm
Welsh lovespoon planDownload
Paper design on wood for carving project
1. The first step for creating your own Welsh lovespoon is to start with a clear piece of timber, which measures approximately 115mm wide × 355mm long by 20mm thick. If you are a beginner, you might want to use a 10mm-thick piece and avoid the swan-neck bend, which the following step-by-step illustrates. The next step is to photocopy the design shown above right. I like to glue a photocopy of the spoon – you can adjust the size to suit – and work directly from that. The paper helps you stay on line and it also offers a bit of protection to unworked areas
Scroll saw carving ornate wood design.
2. A number of methods can be used to rough shape the lovespoon blank. If you have a scrollsaw to hand, that is the quickest and most accurate method. Alternatively, you could also use a jeweller’s saw or go ‘old school’ and rough shape with an axe – the choice is yours. If you do choose to use an axe, don’t forget to hand saw a couple of cuts into the bottoms of curves so that you don’t chip out precious wood you want to keep!
Drill creating holes in decorative wooden board.
3. With the blank now shaped, you are ready to clear out the fretted areas you have marked out. Again, a scrollsaw is the quickest tool for the job, but you can use a drill to clear the bulk of material before cleaning the areas with a narrow straight knife. Using a variety of drill bit sizes will enable you to clear away a good deal of the unwanted wood
Hand carving intricate heart patterns in wood
4. While the piece is full thickness, clamp it securely to the bench and carry out the chip-carved bordering patterns. This is a simple knife operation, which may also be quickly done with a veining or V-chisel. If you use a knife, cut straight down on two sides, adjusting the depth of cut from nothing at the wide end of the triangle to about 1.5mm deep at the pointed end. Then turn the knife sideways and take a slicing cut following the depth of the straight cuts; this will pop out a neat and very effortless little pyramidal chip. Avoid the urge to cut too deeply at this stage. Leave the remaining paper on for now; this will act as a protective cover against any dirt and light abrasions
Hand carving intricate design with chisel on wood.
5.  After the handle carving is complete, it is time to begin shaping the bowl. Begin by cutting a shallow notch – approximately 5mm – to delineate the handle from the swan-neck, then use a bandsaw, hand saw or axe to shape the top of the swan neck curve and the taper of the bowl
Close-up of a carved wooden handle detail.
6. If you are clever, you can peel the paper back off the cutaway and reuse it on the swan-neck, or simply redraw the lines with a pencil. Shape and smooth the neck with a knife or chisel, then carry out the chip-carved pattern
Folded wooden strip on a workbench surface.
7. As you can see here, to clearly define the crest of the bowl, keep it slightly higher than the top surface of the swan-neck
Hand carving wooden ornament with chisel
8. I like to use both gouges and bent knives to hollow out the concave aspect of the bowl. With the spoon clamped securely to the bench, you can use a lot of force and remove material quickly with the
Hands sanding decorative wooden carving.
9. For sanding, I use 150-grit cloth-backed abrasive torn into long, thin strips for both concave and convex curve shaping. To smooth the bowl, draw the abrasive under the thumb – cutting side down – and use the shape of the thumb to smooth out bumps or hollows. Don’t sand too long in one spot or you will create hollows. The same abrasive can be used to smooth and round-over edges
Wood carving chisel shaping detailed fish sculpture
10. Once the bowl has been hollowed, it is time to carve the outside surface. A quick and accurate way to hand-shape this section is to make use of multiple chamfers. I draw out a series of chamfers, which I repeatedly halve until the bowl begins to become rounded. The bowl is probably the area where most carvers fall down. Many treat the bowl as something of an afterthought and leave it looking heavy and crude. However, even the simplest historical spoons show a great deal of effort went into the carving of the bowls and the vast majority are very elegant. The bowl is a crucial counterpoint to the busy handle and is an equally important showcase of your skill and determination as a carver
Carved wood held in vice, sliced by handsaw.
11. The back of the handle can be trimmed to size and the back of the swan-neck shaped. This can be done on a bandsaw or by hand. The black lines delineate the actual thickness of the handle and neck; the red line indicates where the back can be tapered to create the illusion of a thinner handle
Person varnishing intricately carved wooden spoon.
12. I like to finish the back with some detail carving and nicely tidied edges. Once the spoon is tidy, apply three to four coats of Danish oil – with a wet/dry paper sanding of 600 grit – on the third and fourth coats. Finally, give the spoon a buffing with some beeswax polish
Ornately carved wooden love spoon with heart designs.
13. The completed lovespoon should look something like this

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