Bavin (wood)

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Bavin (wood) was a traditional unit of firewood, a large log, of importance in the Biological Old Regime that preceded fossil fuel.

Contents

Description and use

A bavin in the 16thC was a piece of wood standardised as three foot long and two feet round. [1] In Hampshire in the early19thC, its cost was between 6 and 15 shillings per hundred bavins. [2]

Charles Vancouver in 1813 wrote of "Bavins for heating the oven and making a sudden but transient fire". [3] Bavins were used especially by bakers. [4]

Literary associations

Jane Austen in 1814 complained to her sister that “My Mother’s Wood is brought in-but by some mistake, no Bavins. She must therefore buy some”. [5]

See also

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Billet (wood) was a specific and standardised form of wood fuel of significant importance in the traditional pre-fossil fuel economy. The term could also be applied to a cudgel.

References

  1. R Fortey, The Wood for the Trees (2016) p. 154
  2. D Le Faye ed., Jane Austen’s Letters (OUP 1995) p. 432
  3. D Le Faye ed., Jane Austen’s Letters (OUP 1995) p. 432
  4. R Fortey, The Wood for the Trees (2016) p. 207
  5. D Le Faye ed., Jane Austen’s Letters (OUP 1995) p. 264