Casgliadau Arlein

A serrated stick with a nail at one end used for marking out/measuring a roofing slate for trimming. In total there are seventeen serrations on the measuring stick. There are eleven serrations are one inch apart (at the top end of the measuring stick, closest to the nail), whilst the remaining six serrations are two inch apart.

The smallest slate that could be marked/measured with this stick are the ‘Single Ladies’ and above (10 inches in length and above). The largest slate that could be marked/measured with this stick are the ‘Empresses’ (26 inches in length).

Roofing slates’ names and sizes were standardized in 1738 when General Hugh Warburton (joint owner of the Penrhyn Estate at the time) devised the famous ‘female nobility’ names for slates of different sizes (measured in inches) (see below). The naming system soon became the industry standard, although the sizes varied slightly from time to time and area to area.