A history of making rag rugs
Rag rugs, known by other names around the country such as hookies, clippies, peggy or proggy mats, was a utilitarian craft initially, a way for poorer families to create bed coverings or floor rugs from old clothes and fabric scraps. Its precise origins are lost in the distant past, but links have been suggested with Viking settlers. Rugs were made all over the British Isles, and that geographical spread, plus the large number of dialect words used to describe them, point to a long history.
The 19th-century heyday of rag rugs, here and in the USA, has left very few examples as they were not treated as heirlooms. A new rug was often made each winter and the old ones rotated around the house, from hearthrug to kitchen to back door, with the old doormat either thrown away or used outside to cover the potato clamp or compost heap. Thus very few survived. The oldest surviving rag rug in the UK is said to be one made of uniforms worn at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but two earlier hooked bed rugs survive in the USA, one dated 1763 and the other 1773.
Examples of early rag rugs can be seen at the Beamish Open Air Museum in County Durham and the American Museum in Bath, and also in The Museum of Welsh Life, Cardiff and The Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury..
| Glossary of Rag Rug Terms The following regions had these names for prodded rugs: |
|
| Berwick on Tweed | probby |
| Cumbria | stobbie |
| East Cumbria | tabbie |
| Devon and Somerset | shaggy or peggy (hooked rugs were ‘looped’) |
| Co. Durham | proggie |
| Northumberland | clippy |
| Scotland | proddy or peggie (hooked rugs were ‘clootie, cleikie’) |
| Wales | proddie (hooked rugs were ‘hookie’) |
| Westmoreland | brodded |
| Yorkshire | tatty |
| Canada | poked or prodded |
| USA | poked (hooked rugs were ‘drawn in’) |
prodigal rugs