‘Being a rural county, farming was a major employer in Hertfordshire. As late as 1875, around 43 per cent of male workers in the county, were employed in agriculture. This piece shows just a small selection of farming related words in Hertfordshire dialect which was widely spoken with variations across the county up to the 1940s. I have chosen to pack the letters in tightly together so that legibility becomes secondary to the play of the spaces between the inside and outside the lettering.’

carlicker – a boy employed to weed crops, bogget – a scarecrow, haulmin – to clear high stubble with a sickle, akker – an acre, blizzy – an out-door fire, a flaring fire in-doors, bavin – a small bundle of 4ft sticks, kiver – an oval oak tub used to make butter, slabbin – elm slabs for the sides of pig-stye, skoshes – grains of corn which fall, in husk, through the threshing machine, burril – furrow, tumbril – wagon, sittyhen – a broody hen.

Relief-carved lettering on Purbeck Thornback stone